Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

KING'S COLLEGE LONDON BILL (By Order)

Order for Third Reading read.

To be read the Third time upon Tuesday next.

VALE OF GLAMORGAN (BARRY HARBOUR) BILL

As amended, considered; to be read the Third time.

GREATER LONDON COUNCIL (GENERAL POWERS) BILL (By Order)

Order for consideration, as amended, read.

As amended, to be considered upon Tuesday next.

MILE END GARDENS (PORTSMOUTH) BILL [Lords]

Read a Second time and committed.

Oral Answers to Questions — EMPLOYMENT

Departmental Employees (Car Allowances)

Mr. Brotherton: asked the Secretary of State for Employment what rate per mile is paid to personnel of his Department when using their own cars on official business.

The Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. John Grant): The allowance paid depends upon the circumstances in which the private car is used. The standard rates are from 10·6p to 13·4p per mile, depending upon engine size. The standard rate is paid when the use of the private car is justified. Where the advantages lie with the journey being made by public transport, a rate of 6·3p per mile is paid.

Mr. Brotherton: Does the hon. Gentleman agree that all these rates compare very favourably with the 4·1p per mile paid to Service men? Will he inform the Secretary of State for Defence of the differences paid in the mileage rate and invite him to take steps to put them right?

Mr. Grant: I shall draw the attention of my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Defence to what the hon. Gentleman has said, but I think that the


hon. Gentleman should have tabled a Question to him. I cannot help but wonder whether the cost of the hon. Gentleman's travel to the House to ask this Question was really worth while.

Birmingham

Mr. Litterick: asked the Secretary of State for Employment what is the number of people currently registered as unemployed in the city of Birmingham; what was the number 12 months ago; and how many of these were and are under the age of 18 years.

The Under-Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. John Golding): Between April 1977 and April 1978, the total numbers registered as unemployed in the city of Birmingham fell from 38,433 to 36,014. At January 1978, however, the latest date for which figures by age are available, there were 3,337 people under 18 years of age unemployed, compared with 3,216 a year earlier.

Mr. Litterick: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that reply, but can he tell us what contribution the various Government Departments operating in the City of Birmingham have made to the employment of young people, school-leavers, and so on, as trainees? Can he give an assurance that these Government Departments will respond to all the exhortations and injunctions issued by the Government to private employers in respect of the employment and training of young people?

Mr. Golding: There have been difficulties with the trade unions in the public sector with regard to support for the work experience programme and, as Ministers, we appeal to them to give support.

Mr. Eyre: Can the hon. Gentleman explain why the skillcentres in Birmingham and the Midlands are not filling about 20 per cent. of their places despite heavy advertising? Will he take into account the fact that incentives to young people to acquire skills are not great enough to attract them to this necessary work, which is the basis for the expansion of business in due course?

Mr. Golding: The skillcentres are for adults rather than young people. There is no shortage of young people wanting

to take up apprenticeships. The short answer is that the engineering industry, unfortunately, is not attractive enough at present to people in this country.

Earnings

Mr. Neubert: asked the Secretary of State for Employment what is the latest estimate of the annual percentage increase in aggregate earnings in the current pay round.

The Minister of State, Department of Employment (Mr. Harold Walker): The monthly index indicates that average earnings were about 10·4 per cent. higher in February this year than in February last year. This compares with an increase of about 10·3 per cent. in the previous 12 months.

Mr. Neubert: How much evidence does the Minister of State have of bogus self-financing productivity deals, and what action does he intend to take in such cases?

Mr. Walker: I am not sure how that issue arises under this Question, but we look very carefully at productivity proposals. Perhaps the hon. Gentleman has noticed from the Press that we are making arrangements to vet them in the future.

Mr. Hayhoe: Will the Minister of State indicate what is the rate of increase estimated for the public sector as opposed to the private sector, and give forecasts of how he sees the outturn during the present phase of pay policy?

Mr. Walker: I do not think that we produce separate figures for the public sector as opposed to the private sector. As to any guesstimates about the outturn, some people have been making speculative forecasts. I prefer not to indulge in that game, because past experience has shown how misleading it can be. Those who have been using figures such as 14 per cent. should be aware of the damage that they are doing to the economy and to our national interests.

Mr. Michael Latham: With regard to bogus productivity deals—this clearly arises out of my hon. Friend's question—will the Minister say how many civil servants are engaged in monitoring what would be a quite futile exercise?

Mr. Walker: I cannot give the hon. Gentleman the figures offhand. If he will table a Question I shall try to inform him of the numbers involved. I hope that he would want us to monitor and vet productivity deals to ensure that they are not bogus. We are satisfied that those that have been before my Department and have been approved so far are genuine self-financing productivity deals.

Mr. Flannery: Does my hon. Friend agree with me that the aggregate earnings are dependent to a very great extent not just on productivity deals but on overtime, and a great deal of it? Does he not agree further that it is rather sad that so much overtime is being worked when so many people are out of work? Could not something be done about this?

Mr. Walker: I think that we are at one in wishing to see a reduction in the volume of overtime being worked. I hope that my hon. Friend and all hon. Members will read the very informative article published in my Department's Gazette this month.

Unemployed Persons

Mr. Rost: asked the Secretary of State for Employment what is the latest total of registered unemployed.

Mr. Skinner: asked the Secretary of State for Employment what are the latest figures for unemployment; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Arnold: asked the Secretary of State for Employment what are the latest figures for unemployment; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Molloy: asked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will make a statement on the current level of unemployment.

The Secretary of State for Employment (Mr. Albert Booth): At 13th April, 1,387,484 people were registered as unemployed in Great Britain.
While the seasonally adjusted level of unemployment has fallen for the seventh successive month, the prospects for a major improvement depend in large part on international co-operation on economic growth. The recent Budget measures show

the Government's willingness to aid concerted international economic expansion. At home, the special employment measures are playing an important part in keeping down the unemployment level.

Mr. Rost: Instead of hiding the true unemployment figure of nearly 2 million with "phoney" job creation schemes, why do not the Government abandon their Socialist policies of job destruction and provide the real incentives which the Chancellor of the Exchequer has again failed to provide, so that we can have some jobs created?

Mr. Booth: There is nothing "phoney" about measures that we introduce which enable people to provide services in this country and to do useful constructive work, as opposed to drawing unemployment benefit.
As for the Budget measures, I should have thought that the hon. Gentleman would be among the first to appreciate that an increase in purchasing power of about £2·5 billion would stimulate some activity, leading to employment. The direct Government expenditure in construction and in the National Health Service arising from the Budget will certainly feed into additional employment.

Mr. Skinner: Will not the Minister confirm that his listening, together with his colleagues, to the cries from the Opposition about curbing the money supply and cutting back the public sector borrowing requirement, and having cuts in social services and so on, resulted in a large part of the unemployment total? In order to get out of this position, does he agree that he should now turn his attention to restoring those cuts in public spending and to reducing the number of hours that people have to work? As Socialists, my right hon. Friend and his colleagues should be planning the dole queue out of existence and not listening to the Opposition.

Mr. Booth: One of the major factors in the limitation of public expenditure, as I recall it, was the decision that arose from listening not to Opposition Members but to the International Monetary Fund.

Mr. Arnold: Is the Secretary of State satisfied that the Manpower Services


Commission can comply with the obligation imposed on it to offer a job opportunity to each young person leaving school between now and next Easter?

Mr. Booth: That obligation, which we have laid upon the Manpower Services Commission, requires an extremely ambitious programme to be developed very quickly indeed. It is my belief that, given the co-operation of trade unions, employers, local authorities, and a number of other bodies which have a very important contribution to make, we can achieve that aim and in doing so play a major part in reducing the problem of youth unemployment.

Mr. Penhaligon: Will the Minister use this opportunity to describe Cornwall's unemployment figures? Will he indicate what would be the effect in the area of Chacewater, in my constituency, of the closure of Wheal Jane mine? Will he by 12 noon tomorrow tell the Secretary of State for Industry how much it will cost the Department if that mine, in the final analysis, is not rescued?

Mr. Booth: I cannot give a detailed answer to that question without notice, but I assure the hon. Gentleman that the Secretary of State for Industry works very closely with me in examining the employment effects of decisions which either he or I can implement by aid from our Departments.

Mr. Watkinson: My right hon. Friend mentioned the need for international co-operation. Will he recall that at the recent Heads of Government Summit there was discussion about programmes of work sharing? Is his Department engaged on any programmes in this area? If so, will he bring to the House any suggestions on this matter?

Mr. Booth: I have had discussions with the CBI and the TUC about ways in which work sharing might be brought about, including ways that might arise from a reduction in overtime working or a shortening of the working week. I very much hope that we shall have the co-operation of employers and unions in achieving changes along those lines.

Mr. Prior: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that there is very deep and growing concern in the whole nation about the high and sustained level of unemployment? Is he aware that the

policy of the Government has been optimistic, totally unjustified and totally ineffective in reducing unemployment? Is he further aware that, given the record of the Conservative Government on unemployment, compared with the present Government's record, the remarks of the Prime Minister at the weekend were contemptible, to say the least?

Mr. Booth: I can only imagine that the right hon. Gentleman has not studied the unemployment statistics over the past six months. There has not been a steady level of unemployment. There has been a falling level of unemployment. The right hon. Gentleman invites the House to make a comparison between the record of the Government and that of the last Conservative Government. It behoves him to recall that in 1971, 1972 and 1973 there were fewer people employed in this country than there are today.

Mr. Prior: But is it not a fact that for every day the Government have been in office, 600 people have joined the dole queues?

Mr. Booth: There have been considerable redundancies in this country. These have been offset as a direct result of actions taken by the Government. But anyone imagining that it is possible to run the economy of this country in a way which will totally avoid redundancies, on the basis of policies advocated by the Opposition, can in no way have examined objectively what is happening in our economy.

Mr. Alan Lee Williams: Has my right hon. Friend been able to make an estimate of the numbers of job opportunities which should be created by the aid given by his right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer to small businesses?

Mr. Booth: No, we have not been able to make a precise calculation, because that depends very much on the uptake. But I hope that the measures announced by my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and those which I announced in March this year, will be used to the utmost by those concerned to bring down the levels of unemployment. It is the case now that we are not short of schemes to deal with unemployment, or of offers of aid, but we must make a more serious attempt to ensure that such


measures as are available to reduce unemployment are used to the hilt.

Mr. Knox: asked the Secretary of State for Employment how many people were unemployed in the United Kingdom at the most recent count; and how this figure compares with the figure in the comparable month in 1974.

Mr. Booth: At 13th April 1978, 1,451,758 people were registered as unemployed in the United Kingdom, compared with 607,602 in April 1974.

Mr. Knox: In view of the fact that unemployment has more than doubled since this Government came into office, and since there was a big increase in unemployment under the last Labour Government, how can the Labour Party claim to care about unemployment?

Mr. Booth: The number of people in employment is now at a higher level than on average under the last Government. The factors which have led to the increase in unemployment—these are matters of very grave concern to government—take into account the vastly greater number of people now seeking work and the larger numbers leaving school. These are problems which have to be dealt with against the background of a world trading slump of enormous proportions.

Mr. Radice: Does my right hon. Friend accept that although the decrease this month is welcome, the unemployment level in the Northern Region is still far too high? Does he also agree that if, by any misfortune, the Conservative Party gets to power and does as it has promised—cuts out temporary employment subsidy, and gets rid of regional incentives—the level will be far worse?

Mr. Booth: I certainly agree that the unemployment level in the Northern Region is very worrying. The measures that we have introduced there are certainly none too ambitious. I hope that we shall see them used to the hilt. If some of the policies advocated by the Conservatives had been adopted, the situation would be totally intolerable.

Mr. Prior: What work is going on within the Department and within the Government to look at the long-term implications of microvalve work, greater technology, and so on, which is, of course,

at the root of many of our unemployment problems?

Mr. Booth: I have taken individual responsibility for directing work on this matter. In the long term I think that the effect of much more capital-intensive processing in manufacturing industry will be a major factor which may reduce the number of people who can be employed in manufacturing in this country to possibly as few as 25 per cent. of our present working population. We are examining this in various areas. It is one of the factors that we are feeding into discussions at NEDC. It is also one of the factors that will help us analyse the effect of the sector working party reports.

Mr. Gwilym Roberts: Will not my right hon. Friend deplore with me the partisan attitude that has been adopted by the Conservative Opposition on this serious problem of unemployment, which is an international problem where international and national attitudes should be adopted?

Mr. Booth: It is not unknown for partisan attitudes to be adopted in various parts of the House. But those who wish to criticise adversely measures adopted to deal with unemployment are under some obligation to propose measures which they think will be more effective. It is certainly the case that this is an international problem. On standards of reliable international comparison, this country is tackling the problem much more successfully than are many others.

Mr. Gwilym Roberts: asked the Secretary of State for Employment if he will give in the Official Report a breakdown of the March estimate in the Department of Employment Gazette showing that unemployment could be reduced by 600,000 at a cost of £1,000 million by reducing the pension age of men to 60 years.

Mr. John Grant: Yes, Sir. I am arranging to publish in the Official Report details of the estimates and the assumptions on which they are based.

Mr. Roberts: Does my hon. Friend accept, however, that we are in a very dangerous employment position, with an estimated increase in the potential labour force of about 1 million in the next seven years and in the same period probably


the loss of the equivalent of 1 million jobs due to advancing technology if we are to see the sort of national growth that we all hope to see? In those circumstances, does my hon. Friend feel that there is now urgency to move towards earlier retirement, as this has a considerable contribution to make?

Mr. Grant: I am aware of my hon. Friend's long-standing concern about this problem. Indeed, I read his interesting article about in in Labour Weekly at the weekend. As my right hon. Friend has already said, however, he has been having discussions with both the CBI and the TUC on work-sharing measures generally. Obviously, early retirement must figure in discussions of that sort. But, however socially desirable it is to do that—and indeed. I accept the kind of analysis that my hon. Friend has broadly made—inevitably it would add very substantially to net costs at present.

Mr. Bulmer: In view of the Government's poor record of forecasting future trends in employment, what steps has the Department taken to improve its forecasting techniques, and how far ahead does it now feel that it can predict levels of employment with confidence?

Mr. Grant: I think that our forecasting has been quite accurate in the past. Indeed, I think that the forecasts that we have given for at least the next five years are all on the record and they can be tested in due course. However, we have already made it clear that we can expect the net increase in the labour force to be about 170,000 a year for probably the next four or five years.

Following is the information:
The March Department of Employment Gazette gave estimates of the employment and financial effects of lowering the national insurance retirement age for men to 60, derived as follows.
There are 1·4 million men aged 60–64; over 1 million in employment, about 130,000 registered as unemployed. If the same proportion of the economically active retired at 60 as at present retires at 65, after adjustment to the new retirement age fewer than 450,000 would still be working, the majority working part-time.
This would release 750,000 full-time jobs. Assuming a replacement rate of 75 per cent., with 80 per cent. of the replacements coming from the unemployment register, 450,000 of the registered unemployed would find work. Assuming also that almost all the unemployed aged over 60 retired, the unemployed register

would fall by nearly 600,000. The costs would be:
Pensions*: over £1,800 million.
+Loss of income tax and national insurance revenue (net): over £300 million.
-Savings in unemployment benefit and social security payments (net): nearly £1,000 million.
Net cost: nearly £1,200 million per year.
* At present pension levels, assuming the deferment age limit was lowered by five years.

Mr. Ioan Evans: asked the Secretary of State for Employment what further action is proposed to reduce the number of working people who are unemployed.

Mr. Henderson: asked the Secretary of State for Employment what further measures he intends to introduce to reduce unemployment.

Mr. Booth: I announced in the House on 15th March details of the expanded programme of special employment and training measures with which we shall be seeking to mitigate the effects of high unemployment over the coming year. The special measures are still developing. We shall keep under review their scope and effectiveness and shall continue to provide special support for job and training opportunities so long as unemployment remains high. At the international level, the Government are engaged in discussions on a concerted strategy to stimulate economic growth.

Mr. Evans: I recognise the good work that the Government have done, but will my right hon. Friend encourage his Cabinet colleagues to make the reduction of unemployment the Government's main priority in the months ahead, as it is causing deep anxiety to young people leaving school who go straight on to the dole queue?

Mr. Booth: I shall give my hon. Friend that undertaking, not merely because of the anxiety that unemployment is causing young people but because I believe that it is the only way, in the long run, of enabling all people who wish to work to provide the goods and services that will enable he and I to achieve the social objectives for which we have campaigned.

Mr. Haselhurst: In view of the demands of the micro-electronic revolution


and of the need, which presumably the Government accept, to improve productivity to the best international standards, is it not clear that further and drastic measures will be necessary to alleviate unemployment in the next 10 years or more?

Mr. Booth: We shall need to have a dynamic manpower policy to cope with the new phase of the technological revolution. That means that we have to find ways of enabling more people to work in service industries in relation to those who work in manufacturing industry. That means findings ways of transferring some of the wealth that is being created by modern capital-intensive manufacturing industry into an effective demand for services.

Mr. Gerry Fowler: Bearing in mind my right hon. Friend's earlier replies about technology and industrial change, does he agree that it is imperative that the Government begin to examine a strategy including continued education, training and work experience for young people, paid education and training leave for those in employment and the possibility of early retirement and work sharing, as well as the other measures that he mentioned?

Mr. Booth: I accept that all those factors have a part to play, but that is especially so of training measures for young people. A changing manpower situation will mean a requirement for many people to retrain to obtain employment and, therefore, a far greater flexibility of approach.

Mr. Hayhoe: Is not the best way of transferring the wealth created by capital-intensive industries into a demand for services a reduction in direct taxation?

Mr. Booth: No, not at all. One area that I believe has a major part to play is that of public services. If direct taxation contributes to improving hospital and school services and other public services, it will contribute to greater employment in those areas.

Special Temporary Employment Programme

Mr. Adley: asked the Secretary of State for Employment if he is satisfied that the special temporary employment

programme involves less paperwork and administration that the job creation scheme; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. Golding: I am informed by the Manpower Services Commission that although paperwork and administration involved in the running of the special temporary employment programme will be slightly more than for the job creation programme, they will be kept to the minimum consistent with both making a success of the programme, and accounting properly for the use of public funds.

Mr. Adley: Is the Minister aware that that is a disappointing answer? Is he further aware that more than three months elapsed between the application of the Christchurch Council for job creation scheme assistance for work on the restoration of Highcliffe Castle, in my constituency, and the actual start of the scheme? As the Council has now applied to the Manpower Services Commission for an extension of that scheme from the original 13 weeks, will the Minister do his best to ensure that this is expedited as quickly as possible?

Mr. Golding: I shall certainly draw the attention of the Manpower Services Commission to that example.

Mr. Corbett: Will my hon. Friend refute the suggestion that the job creation programme was top-heavy with either administration or paper work? Is it not the case that, on average, no more than 3 per cent. was spent on administration and a most marvellous job was done? Will he encourage those responsible, both for STEP and the youth opportunities programme, to do their best to ensure maximum local involvement in the running of these schemes under the area boards that have been set up?

Mr. Golding: I confirm that the cost of administration was only 2 per cent. It has been increased to only 2·2 per cent. That is a very good record. Certainly, we as a Government want as much local involvement as possible both in the youth opportunities programme and STEP.

Mr. Eldon Griffiths: Is the Minister aware that certain East Anglian firms have been sent mimeographed letters saying that their applications for temporary employment help cannot be dealt with for at least 10 weeks? Since this means


that in many cases the jobs have disappeared before the Department gets round to trying to save them, will he do something about it? Does he realise that if he does not do so it will be a case of trying to deal with the disease after the patient has died?

Mr. Golding: It appears that there is a plea from the Conservative Benches for additions to the number of public servants dealing with this problem.

Manpower Services Commission

Mr. Christopher Price: asked the Secretary of State for Employment when he last met the Chairman of the Manpower Services Commission.

Mr. Booth: I last met the chairman of the Manpower Services Commission on 24th April 1978.

Mr. Price: Is my right hon. Friend aware that much as the youth opportunities scheme is welcome, there is very great fear that the complete insensitivity of the Manpower Services Commission to local needs is jeopardising the Government's objective of giving every young person some opportunity this year? Can he tell us when the MSC will issue specific guidelines to local authorities and voluntary organisations about how to set up co-operative schemes and when every local area in the country will have a local committee so that local needs can be taken into consideration?

Mr. Booth: I can tell my hon. Friend that guidelines and handbooks covering all parts of the youth opportunities programme are now available from the MSC's area offices. Many local authorities have already taken the initiative—which we welcome—in setting up local committees to assess needs and plan projects. It has always been our intention, in dealing with the Manpower Services Commission, that the area boards should be guided and should work in close co-operation with local area committees, since although there is a wide scope within the youth opportunities programme to institute various elements of the programme, it should be done in a way that is highly sensitive to local needs.

Mr. Madel: Has the chairman of the Manpower Services Commission

explained to the Government how the Commission will overcome the shortage of trainers and instructors in order that the youth opportunities programme can get off the ground fully in September? Can he say how much information the Government have about the way in which the Commission is approaching employers for the use of their premises for training purposes?

Mr. Booth: With regard to the first part of the hon. Gentleman's question, the MSC is funded to employ about 8,000 adults—preferably recruited from the ranks of the unemployed—to instruct and supervise in the youth opportunities programme. This relates to the second part of the question, because in trying to develop certain of the projects within employers' premises—particularly the work experience schemes—we have worked out with the MSC a number of direct approaches to employers as well as a general advertising campaign. We are hoping for a response that will enable the doubling of the present work experience element of the programme.

Dr. McDonald: When my right hon. Friend next meets the chairman of the MSC, will he ask him why the television advertising and leaflets for the engineering training schemes depict only men, thereby giving the impression that only men may apply?

Mr. Booth: I certainly shall. It was not my intention that any advertising by the MSC should give the impression that there is a bias in favour of men.

Journalists

Mr. Silvester: asked the Secretary of State for Employment what proposals he has for protecting journalists from the imposition of a closed shop.

Mr. Harold Walker: The application of closed shop agreements to journalists is one of the matters which under the terms of the Trade Union and Labour Relations (Amendment) Act 1976 must be covered in the draft charter of Press freedom which my right hon. Friend is required by that Act to prepare and submit to Parliament. However, I cannot yet say when it will be possible to lay a draft before Parliament.

Mr. Silvester: Does the Minister recognise the need for protection of this kind and that this need is growing? When does he propose to introduce his draft Press charter, which has been hanging on for a very long time?

Mr. Walker: As regards the time, I think the House will recognise that it made sense to wait until the Royal Commission reported. It reported in June, since when I have personally conducted a very long series of consultations with the many representatives of both sides of the industry. I hope that the hon. Gentleman would expect me to give full consideration to all the views that have been expressed to me. I still wait to have consultations with the TUC, the CBI and the Press Council before the consultations can be concluded and before, therefore, we can propose a draft to Parliament.

Mr. Corbett: Will my hon. Friend confirm that the best protection that journalists had was when the present Government and this House repealed the stupid attempts by the Conservative Party to put the trade union movement in shackles? However, in the context of the talks on the charter, will my hon. Friend say whether the Newspaper Publishers Association has yet been able to speak with one voice on this important topic?

Mr. Walker: With regard to the first part of my hon. Friend's question, it is certainly true that what we have done is basically to restore the law to what it was before 1971. Attempts in the 1971 Act to outlaw the closed shop had the opposite effect and resulted in the loss, in 1972, of 24 million working days due to disputes.
On the second part of the question, no, the Newspaper Publishers Association has not been able to speak with one voice. One of the difficulties that we have experienced has been that instead of listening to one voice from Fleet Street, we have had to listen to another.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: Is the Minister satisfied that there is no restriction on bona fide journalists gaining entry to an appropriate trade union?

Mr. Walker: I am not aware of any.

Mr. Prior: Will the Minister confirm that any charter laid before this House will contain complete freedom of access

for all people to the Press at all times and, secondly, that there will be an undertaking that a journalist can join a union or not join a union according to his choice? When will this be laid before the House, because no other charter will have a majority here?

Mr. Walker: I think that I have indicated the difficulties with which we are faced with regard to timing. My right hon. Friend is anxious that we should come before the House with the draft charter as soon as practicable.
On the two specific points that the right hon. Gentleman has raised, yes, access to the Press will be one of the matters that will be covered and is required by the Act to be covered by the charter. It would be rather premature for me to reflect now on precisely what the charter will say. On the second point—the proposal that the charter should contain a right for every journalist to belong or not to belong to a trade union—again, obviously that will have to await the charter, but I would personally find it very difficult to reconcile that with the debate in both Houses that led to the concept of a Press charter and, indeed, the terms of the parent Act itself.

London

Mr. Dykes: asked the Secretary of State for Employment what recent studies have been made by his Department into the incidence and scope, as well as the numbers involved, in unemployment lasting more than six months in the outer boroughs of the Greater London area; and how many people were in this category at the latest date for which official figures are available.

Mr. John Grant: At January 1978, 25,059 people who had been unemployed for over six months were registered at those employment offices corresponding most closely with the Outer London boroughs. No special studies have recently been made into the features of long-term unemployment in the outer London boroughs.

Mr. Dykes: Although Greater London has never had to endure the terrible unemployment figures of the North-East and North-West, is it not a colossal indictment of the present complacent and incompetent Government that for the first


time deep-seated, long-lasting structural unemployment is actually now a feature in the outer London boroughs, including my own area of Harrow, as well as inner London? When will the Government really tackle this problem as well as national unemployment?

Mr. Grant: The hon. Gentleman is exaggerating very considerably the problems of the outer London boroughs. I accept, of course, that there are pockets of high unemployment and that there are structural problems, but I think that the hon. Gentleman is exaggerating very considerably.
Perhaps the hon. Gentleman will ask his friends at County Hall, who now control that place, whether they think that their suggestion of axing about 10,000 public sector jobs will help employment prospects in London.

Mr. Christopher Price: Is my hon. Friend aware that much of the responsibility for stripping London of its employment lies with the Opposition and the policies that they carried out when in power, including the sort of asset stripping that went on left, right and centre within London? Can my hon. Friend guarantee that none of the policies of his Department will inhibit the attempts of local authorities in London to bring industry back?

Mr. Grant: I certainly would not dissent from my hon. Friend's opening remarks. As for guaranteeing the future, I think that most of the efforts of my Department in this respect have been very helpful to London.

Closed Shop Agreements (Public Sector)

Mr. Gow: asked the Secretary of State for Employment in which industries in the public sector there are closed shop agreements; and whether he will make a statement about the policy of the Government towards the closed shop.

Mr. Harold Walker: The information is not readily available. The Government have consistently maintained a position of neutrality on the subject of closed shop agreements. We believe that whether they should be introduced—and, if so, in what form—is a matter to be determined by agreement between the employers and trade unions concerned.

Mr. Gow: Is the Minister aware that in the publicly owned British Railways 40 employees have been dismissed for refusing to join a trade union and that two more were dismissed when they resigned from their trade unions? How does he reconcile the Government's policy of neutrality towards these matters with Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that each worker shall have the right to free choice of employment?

Mr. Walker: I sometimes wonder whether the hon. Gentleman listens, because we have been having this dialogue over many months now and I have repeatedly pointed out to him that these are matters on which it would be quite inappropriate for the Government to interfere. I have said repeatedly that we would hope that where union membership agreements were entered into they would be handled in a flexible and tolerant manner—[Interruption.] It would be quite inappropriate for the Government to be dictating to any employer or trade union, in a way that the Opposition tried to do and failed, about whether or not they should enter into union membership agreements.

Mr. Roy Hughes: With regard to the operation of the closed shop, has my hon. Friend looked into the situation at Thomson Regional Newspapers, where the journalists are at present subject to a lock-out? Would it not seem that the militant tendencies in this industry at least belong essentially to the employers?

Mr. Walker: Of course, it should be recognised that there are difficulties with employers as well as with trade unions in this respect. But, in the particular case that my hon. Friend has mentioned, I think that it would be equally inappropriate for me to comment or to seek to intervene in that situation. If the services of ACAS can be helpful, they are available to be called upon.

Mr. Hayhoe: Will the Minister say how the neutrality which he and the Government say they have towards a closed shop differers from the neutrality of Pontius Pilate washing his hands?

Mr. Walker: The hon. Gentleman ought to try to think of something original. I think that that is at least the second time that he has tried that. The


Government's position, in accordance with our General Election manifesto commitment, was that we would revert the law to that which applied before the Industrial Relations Act 1971, and that is the law which has applied for many years in this country, and that is the law now. I have pointed out—and I regret that I have to do it again—that when the Opposition tried to outlaw closed shops, closed shops flourished in spite of that. The only result was that the Conservatives produced the most massive loss of working days due to industrial disputes that we have suffered since the General Strike.

Employment Protection Act

Mr. McCrindle: asked the Secretary of State for Employment if he remains satisfied with the operation of the Employment Protection Act.

Mr. Harold Walker: Yes, but I am continuing to keep the working of the Act under review.

Mr. McCrindle: Is not one of the most worrying aspects of the Act the difficulty that small employers have in meeting its maternity requirements? Does the Minister agree that there is a case for relaxing the requirements, especially for small employers who engage principally female clerical labour?

Mr. Walker: This was one of the matters that was fully discussed when the Bill, as it then was, was before the House. In response to various moves made by hon. Members and the right hon. Member for Lowestoft (Mr. Prior) we tried to help smaller employers by making significant changes in the scheme to arrange for central funding rather than for individual employers to have to carry their own burden.

Mr. Flannery: How can my hon. Friend be satisfied with the working of the Act when we have had two Bills frustrated by the Opposition—Bills that are destined to try to put the Act right and to have workers consulted on what is happening in a factory? Is my right hon. Friend aware that although the Conservative Party is always talking about law and order it is conniving at producing more Grunwicks and preventing the two Bills to which I have referred passing through the House?

Mr. Walker: It would be unfortunate if our satisfaction with the Act misled the House into thinking that we do not think that some reforms are necessary. I believe that the reforms that have been put before the House would be a significant strengthening of the Act to enable it to deal with the sort of problems of which we have had experience in recent months. I regret that the Opposition have deliberately obstructed the passage of those Bills.

Mr. Prior: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that the answer to the Question about the Act, together with the answers that have been given throughout the afternoon by his fellow Ministers, shows that the Government are completely bankrupt of ideas of how to deal with the unemployment situation? Does he realise that even those on his own side of the Chamber, let alone the TUC, are reduced to silence on this issue? The only person who can say anything is the Prime Minister, and he seeks to mislead everyone.

Mr. Walker: I am sure that that wild, generalised statement will not be much help to the House. It might have been a little more constructive if the right hon. Gentleman had told the House, as we have repeatedly asked him to do, what changes in the Act he and his party would consider necessary. At some time he may care to tell us.

Oral Answers to Questions — MAIDSTONE

Mr. Wells: asked the Prime Minister if he will pay an official visit to Maidstone.

The Prime Minister (Mr. James Callaghan): I have at present no plans to visit Maidstone.

Mr. Wells: Is the Prime Minister aware of the sharp deterioration in the quality of life in Maidstone and in Kent in the past five years, due to the fact that the present Government have not given Kent its fair share of Government expenditure? Is he aware that our hospitals are delayed, our motorways are delayed, north-south roads are delayed and environmental matters, such as the production of TDI and other chemicals, are not producing new jobs but are spoiling people's lives?

The Prime Minister: I note that the hon. Gentleman, in contradistinction to the Opposition Front Bench, seems to believe that we should be spending more public money on hospitals and on roads. Having listened to him, I feel rather like the British general who, in Singapore, found that his guns were facing the wrong way.

Oral Answers to Questions — PRIME MINISTER (ENGAGEMENTS)

Mr. Adley: asked the Prime Minister if he will list his public engagements for 2nd May.

The Prime Minister: In addition to my duties in this House, I shall be holding meetings with ministerial colleagues and others. This evening I hope to have an Audience of Her Majesty The Queen.

Mr. Adley: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that many people will welcome the Government's decision to send the Chief of Defence Staff to Peking to try to forge closer defence links with that country? Is he aware that many will also welcome the forthright statement made by the Chief of Defence Staff, appropriately enough on May Day? Will he take this opportunity to make it clear to those in his party who echo the Kremlin line that he approves of the way in which Sir Neil Cameron is doing his job and that he will do nothing to prevent his continuing to do his job?

The Prime Minister: It is true that the Government seek to improve relations with China. That has been why a number of Ministers and others have visited that great country in recent years. We shall continue to improve relations with China, but I emphasise that that will not be at the expense of our relations with any of the other major countries in the world. I do not believe that that will be the policy of either party.

Mr. Sever: When taking an Audience of Her Majesty this evening, will my right hon. Friend ask Her Majesty whether it is possible for her to give more favourable consideration to attending more often the Football Association Cup Final?

The Prime Minister: The discussions that take place between the Prime Minister and the Queen are, by all the

usual conventions, kept confidential. The answer to my hon. Friend's supplementary question is "No, Sir".

Mrs. Thatcher: Why does the Prime Minister not stand up for what Sir Neil Cameron said this week? Why did he not stand up for the defence chiefs last week? Why does he not do more to sort out the pro-Soviet grout, on his side of the House? Are not those hon. Members the real mischief-makers in defence affairs?

The Prime Minister: I am not quite sure what the right hon. Lady is intending concerning relations with the Soviet Union, but a year ago, after her visit to China, I understood her to say that she did not wish to see relations with the Soviet Union impaired. No more do I. I hope that that is still her view.
As for standing up for what has been said, I gather that Sir Neil Cameron was responding to a spontaneous toast by the local comander of the unit that he was visiting, and that he made an unscripted and impromptu reply.
In case there is any misunderstanding, or in case the Conservative Party wishes to change the constitutional conventions, I repeat that the formulation of British foreign policy is the responsibility of Her Majesty's Ministers. The remarks made by Sir Neil Cameron on this occasion should not be regarded as altering, extending, modifying or changing in any way the present relationships between Britain and China or between Britain and the Soviet Union.

Mrs. Thatcher: Will the Prime Minister, therefore, say whether he supports Sir Neil Cameron or not?

The Prime Minister: This is a matter in which there is a constitutional relationship between the Chiefs of Staff and the British Government. I certainly should not enter into that kind of discussion with the right hon. Lady on this matter. What is important in our relations with the Soviet Union, which the Opposition do not seem to take very seriously, on occasion, is that we should continue to work for detente and for a measure of disarmament. If the Opposition do not wish that, they have changed their policy since the right hon. Lady put it forward as her policy a year ago.

Mr. Anderson: Does my right hon. Friend think it coincidental that over the past few weeks there have been many attempts to drive a wedge between the Government and the Services? Will he say that, whatever his general views, the views expressed by the Defence Chief in Peking were unwise, to say the least?

The Prime Minister: I think that the various things that have blown up over the last few weeks have been coincidental. I do not think that Sir Neil Cameron went out of his way, because he has made only one public speech on this matter, to which no one would take any exception at all. I think that he made one or two remarks which, as the Opposition spokesman on defence said on the radio at 1 0'clock, might have been phrased a little differently, but that is an entirely different matter. I do not think that the right hon. Lady is helping our relations with both these Powers by putting the kind of question that she has been putting this afternoon.

Mr. Gow: asked the Prime Minister whether he will list his official engagements for 2nd May.

The Prime Minister: I refer the hon. Member to the reply which I gave earlier today to the hon. Member for Christchurch and Lymington (Mr. Adley).

Mr. Gow: As the Prime Minister betrayed the Armed Forces of the Crown in his statement last week about their pay settlement—[HON. MEMBERS: "Shame."]—will he now not betray their professional head and give a clear statement today—preferably now—that he gives unequivocal support to the views expressed in China by the Chief of the Defence Staff?

The Prime Minister: The Chief of the Defence staff said that he was speaking on military matters, not on political questions. In so far as he was speaking on military matters, of course he would have the support of Her Majesty's Government. However, in so far as he was speaking on political matters, it is for him to support the policy of Her Majesty's Government.

Mr. Robert Hughes: rose—

Mr. Skinner: Be careful what you say, Bob.

Mr. Hughes: Does my right hon. Friend understand that, as a result of earlier exchanges, at the next election the Leader of the Opposition will jettison "The Right Approach" in favour of Mao Tse Tung's "Little Red Book"?

The Prime Minister: I note that there is a difference in the right hon. Lady's attitude according to which Communist regime she happens to have visited. Both Yugoslavia and China are in her good books. She has visited both countries. The Soviet Union is not in her good books. She has not yet visited it. I do not know whether her opinion will change if she does, but I promise her that my opinion will change about neither of these States according to whether I visit them or not. Neither of them fits my concept of the way in which this country wants to go.

Mr. Michael Spicer: If there is to be this burgeoning planned friendship with the Soviet Union about which the Prime Minister is talking, what does he have to say about the fact that there are three Russian tanks for every NATO tank at the door of Central Europe at the moment?

The Prime Minister: I have as much to say about that, which is not related to my official engagements for today, as I have said on earlier occasions, namely, that I think that it is a source of considerable disquiet. I have often said that the Soviet Union, by building up its armed forces in this way, is undoubtedly adding to the tension that exists. But that is nothing to do with picking and choosing between various Communist regimes, which the right hon. Lady is seeking to do.

Mr. MacFarquhar: Could my right hon. Friend leave aside for the moment the urgings of the Opposition and, in the light of what Sir Neil Cameron said, state the Government's overall position on the possibility of arms sales to China?

The Prime Minister: I could not do that in reply to a question this afternoon. A number of considerations have to be borne in mind and they are being taken into account now. There has been no formal discussion on this matter with the Chinese.

Mr. Fairbairn: For once, my question relates to the Prime Minister's engagements today. Could he fit in one further engagement today and listen to the regional election results tonight on the radio from Scotland and note the profound defeat that the Labour Party will have at the hands of the Conservatives?

The Prime Minister: Unfortunately I cannot get Scotland on my set. When I tried to listen to the news on the set in my hotel in Glasgow early this morning, all I could get was punk rock music.

Oral Answers to Questions — EUROPEAN COMMUNITY

Mr. Moate: asked the Prime Minister when he next expects to meet the EEC Heads of Government.

The Prime Minister: I expect to meet the Heads of Government of some of the member States of the EEC at the meeting of the North Atlantic Council in Washington on 30th and 31st May. I shall also be attending a meeting of the European Council in Bremen on 6th and 7th July.

Mr. Moate: Does the Prime Minister remember his promise that there would be a fundamental reform of the common agricultural policy? As the British taxpayer will soon be paying about £1,000 million a year, net, into the Common Market budget, and with British food production at a lower level than it was five years ago, will he admit that he has totally broken that promise to the British people?

The Prime Minister: The common agricultural policy has been changing throughout the lifetime of this Government, beginning with the original premiums in respect of beef which were introduced some time ago, and my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture is fighting for further changes now. That ought to have the approval, not the censure, of the hon. Gentleman, especially as we are trying to keep down the structural surpluses which are disfiguring Continental agriculture at the present time.

Mr. Hooley: When my right hon. Friend next meets the EEC Heads of State, will he discuss with them how they can bring pressure to bear to modify the hard-line stance of Israel on the Middle

East negotiations and give further support to President Sadat's initiative?

The Prime Minister: I shall certainly see whether there is any desire to discuss this matter at the next meeting of the European Council, but it is rather a long way away—6th and 7th July. I hope that the discussions that President Carter is now about to have with Prime Minister Begin and the further discussions that may take place between Prime Minister Begin and President Sadat will lead to some movement and progress on this matter before we meet in July.

Sir A. Meyer: If the Prime Minister is going to boast that he will prevent the Common Market from not allowing daily doorstep deliveries of milk, when he knows perfectly well that the Common Market has no intention of stopping them, will he be careful not to remind his Common Market colleagues of the way in which he once boasted that he would prevent British trawlers from being chased out of Icelandic waters?

The Prime Minister: I was not aware that I had boasted about anything of that sort. As for the Milk Marketing Board—I hope that the Opposition are in agreement—we should not allow ourselves to be driven to make fundamental alterations to the Board. That is exactly what the Minister of Agriculture is trying to do now.

Mr. Norman Atkinson: In regard to the Prime Minister's earlier answer, does he accept that all on the Government side of the House will warmly welcome the firm statement of good will towards the Soviet Union that he made, reaffirming that it is the intention of the Labour Party to pursue with the utmost vigour the whole question of nuclear disarmament—

Mr. Speaker: Order. This Question is about the EEC Heads of Government.

CHIEF OF DEFENCE STAFF (SPEECH)

Mr. Ryman: (by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for Defence whether he authorised the Chief of the Defence Staff to make a speech in Peking on 1st May; and whether he will make a statement.

The Secretary of State for Defence (Mr. Frederick Mulley): The Chief of the Defence Staff's visit to China is an official visit the object of which is a broad exchange of views on defence matters. It is being made in response to an invitation extended to his predecessor.
The remarks made by Sir Neil Cameron in Peking yesterday were in reply to a speech of welcome by the commander of the Chinese Sixth Tank Division whose units he was visiting. The question of my authorising what were impromptu remarks therefore did not arise.

Mr. Ryman: Does my right hon. Friend agree that, at a time when the Tory Party is deliberately seeking to incite disaffection amongst members of the Armed Forces for party political purposes, it is more important than ever that serving officers should adhere strictly to a constitutional convention whereby they do not announce changes in Government policy?

Mr. Mulley: I can give my hon. Friend an assurance. I am satisfied that Sir Neil Cameron had no intention of changing in any way Government defence or foreign policy. My right hon. Friend the Prime Minister put the matter in the right perspective in his remarks to the House a short time ago.

Sir Frederic Bennett: Was Sir Neil Cameron incorrect in referring to the Soviet Union as the only potential enemy which our forces in Europe are facing at present? [HON. MEMBERS: "He did not say 'potential'."] I am not interested in what Sir Neil said but in what I say. If Sir Neil Cameron was wrong in referring to the Soviet Union as the only aggressor—if that pleases hon. Members opposite rather than the phrase "potential aggressor"—which our forces are facing, could the Secretary of State remind us which other Power we have in mind as a reason for keeping the large number of forces presently in Europe?

Mr. Mulley: To the best of my information and knowledge, Sir Neil did not say what the hon. Member suggests that he said. Had I been able to advise him, I should have advised him not to use the word "enemy" because it gives rise to the type of misunderstandings that we have seen since then.

Mr. Norman Atkinson: Is my right hon. Friend aware that it has long been secretly whispered by members of the senior council of NATO that they believe that the whole of our strategy should be based upon the military encirclement of the Soviet Union? Would it not therefore seem natural that our Chief of Staff, when visiting Peking, should put up one or two propositions for the sale of British military armaments in order to fulfil a function of that kind? Will my right hon. Friend dissociate himself totally from ideas leading to a strategy of that type? Will he give the House an assurance that it is not our purpose to sell these weapons to China in these circumstances?

Mr. Mulley: From my own experience my hon. Friend could not be further from the truth in supposing that NATO circles are contemplating a strategy of that kind. On the question of the sale of equipment, Sir Neil Cameron has made it clear that he has not, in any sense, gone there in the capacity of salesman. As the Prime Minister made clear, we have had no indications from the Chinese Government about whether they do or do not wish to purchase any, or any particular, equipment. If they do make requests, these will, of course, be considered in line with international obligations.

Mr. Churchill: On behalf of the Opposition I have three questions to put to the Secretary of State. First, will he say whether there is any country, other than the Soviet Union, that poses a conventional and nuclear threat to the peoples of Britain and Western Europe?
Secondly, will he confirm that nothing that the Chief of the Defence Staff said in his remarks in Peking was factually inaccurate? Thirdly, will he now give his public support to the remarks of the Chief of the Defence Staff and disavow the propaganda currently emanating from Moscow and from the Kremlin's fifth column in this country?

Mr. Mulley: The hon. Member had the fortune, or misfortune, to hear my views on defence strategy at substantial length in defence debates and in a White Paper. It would be impossible to summarise them in answer to a supplementary question. There is nothing in the impromptu remarks that Sir Neil made that suggests that I should diminish my


confidence in him as my chief military adviser as Chief of the Defence Staff.

Mr. Hooson: Would the Secretary of State take time off to explain to some of his Friends below the Gangway what the Warsaw Pact is all about? Does he agree that the Chief of the Defence Staff would have been better advised had he used the word "potential"?

Mr. Mulley: It is always difficult to correct speeches after they have been made. The House should see this matter in the proper and balanced perspective put to the House by my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister.

Mr. Frank Allaun: Before further damage is done to disarmament, détente and peace, will the Secretary of State repudiate even more firmly and clearly than my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister has just done this provocative war talk, and do that in the clearest way by dismissing this man who, like top civil servants, has no right to open his mouth in public on Government policy and to make new policy in this way?

Mr. Mulley: I should again make it clear that I am quite satisfied that Sir Neil Cameron had no intention of trying to change, modify or in any way alter Government policy. My hon. Friend has somewhat exaggerated his fears that he has about the damage that may or may not have been done to disarmament and other very important matters. I do not feel that that is so. It is not my desire in any way to embellish the considered views of the Prime Minister on this matter.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: Order. This is a Private Notice Question, I propose to call two more hon. Members from each side. This subject has had a good run, both now and during Prime Minister's Questions.

Mr. Goodhart: Does the Secretary of State recall that in his defence White Paper earlier this year he said:
Theatre nuclear weapons are needed to deter the use of similar weapons by the Soviet Union.
Does the right hon. Gentleman recognise that that realistic remark was at least as hostile in its implications for the Soviet Union as anything said by the Chief of the Defence Staff in China?

Mr. Mulley: It is only right that the House and the country should take the statement on the Defence Estimates as being the statement of Government defence policy.

Mr. Mikardo: Does it not always lead to trouble when politicians start to fancy themselves as military strategists and generals start to fancy themselves as world statesmen?

Mr. Mulley: As two general propositions, there is a lot to be said for both of those suggestions. I do not believe that Sir Neil sees himself in the latter category, and if that supplementary question is an indication on the part of my hon. Friend and his hon. Friends that they renounce the first category, I shall, of course, be very pleased.

Mr. Charles Morrison: In view of the recent remarks by two Labour Back-Bench Members, does the Secretary of State agree with those Labour Right wingers and moderates who state that it is time for the Left wing to say on which side it is? What steps is the Secretary of State taking to ensure that the Left wing does not get increasing control over his activities?

Mr. Mulley: I have no anxieties about being taken over by the Left wing or the Right wing of the party. I regard "Left" and "Right" as rather inexact and emotive terms.

Mr. Crawshaw: There are those like myself who feel that the air marshal was right, but does my right hon. Friend agree that it was unfortunate for Sir Neil to make a political speech on such an occasion? Contrary to what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister says, is it not necessary sometimes to choose between different Communist countries depending on whether they have peaceful or aggressive intentions? Will my right hon. Friend advise any generals who make such visits to make such speeches before the toast rather than after?

Mr. Mulley: I should like to make one point absolutely clear. My knowledge of Sir Neil Cameron is such—and this would be borne out by everyone who has known him during a distinguished career—that I know that any suggestion that he was intoxicated could not be further from the truth.

NEW MEMBERS

The following Members took and subscribed the Oath: Raymond Whitney Esq., for Wycombe, Archibald Hamilton, Esq., for Epsom and Ewell.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered,
That, at this day's sitting, notwithstanding the provisions of paragaph 2(c) of Standing Order No. 18 (Business of Supply), the Motion relating to commercial agents may be proceeded with after Ten o'clock.—[Mr. Graham.]

BANK HOLIDAYS (AMENDMENT)

3.48 p.m.

Sir Anthony Meyer: I beg to move.
That leave be given to bring in a Bill to alter the statutory dates for bank holidays.
The purpose of the Bill is to transfer one day of public holiday from Easter to the beginning of May. It is most emphatically not a Bill to provide for a fixed Easter. That is a matter for the Churches, in which politicians should not interfere. However, Easter Monday has no religious significance, and whether it comes early, as it did this year, or late, as it will next year, it comes too early for any likelihood of warm sunny weather, or any possibility of long evenings.
My Bill, therefore, would transfer the holiday to the new public holiday in early May which has proved such a disastrous flop this year. Quite apart from the filthy weather, all the attractions for which the Government are responsible were closed to the public, thereby providing a foretaste of the Socialist paradise to come.
I do not want to celebrate the Feast of Saint Karl Marx, the man whose teachings have been responsible for fastening tyranny on half the world. Like it or not, however, we have an extra day's holiday in early May. It is at present too short to be of much use, except to provide an opportunity to reflect on the horrors of Communism so well set out in the leader in The Times today. One extra day transferred from Easter would make it worth while for people to take a holiday away from home.
A long weekend in early May would be of real benefit to the hotel and tourist industry, the importance of which in our economy is growing rapidly, which is making a major contribution to our balance of payments and which is vital to employment in my constituency and others because it is very labour-intensive.
In my constituency the hotel and tourist industry is the only one that offers any hope whatever of reducing the horrifying level of unemployment. At present those operating tourist facilities and hotels have to open at Easter and then shut down again until the summer season begins in about mid-May. If we had a


worthwhile public holiday at the beginning of May that was long enough to tempt people away from home, the season might get off to an earlier start.
Lengthening the season in this way would spread the incidence of fixed costs. This, in turn, would lower prices and reduce congestion, which would be in the interests both of those who work in the tourist industry and of those who make use of its facilities.

Question put and agreed to.

Bill ordered to be brought in by Sir Anthony Meyer, Mr. Robert Adley, Mr. Stephen Ross, Mr. Alan Lee Williams, and Mr. Dafydd Wigley.

BANK HOLIDAYS (AMENDMENT)

Sir Anthony Meyer accordingly presented a Bill to alter the statutory dates for bank holidays; And the same was read the First time; and ordered to be read a Second time upon Friday, 12th May and to be printed. [Bill 119.]

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY

[14TH ALLOTTED DAY]—considered

PRIVILEGES

3.53 p.m.

Mr. Speaker: Before I call the Lord President. I must remind the House that the sub judice rule applies to the cases that are still before the courts.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: On a point of order, Mr. Speaker. This debate arises out of an incident on 20th April and the ruling which you gave the following day, on 21st April. I have put down an Early-Day Motion, which is still on the Order Paper, that the ruling should not be cited or drawn into precedent. My understanding was that such a motion, having critical implications for you, Mr. Speaker—although we are discussing the reasons for the ruling rather than your personal conviction—should be debated.
I am now assured that this is not true, but it would be more convenient that this point should be discussed in the debate because it relates to this issue. If I am called, I should like to speak about the proposition that I have tabled. Because it is somewhat critical of you, Mr. Speaker, does this mean that I am in any way prevented from doing so?

Mr. Speaker: Not at all, not merely because it is critical of me. Nobody would ever be prevented from speaking in such circumstances. But no doubt I would remember it, because I am as human as anyone else.
The hon. Member for York (Mr. Lyon) is learned in the law and I am sure that he will keep within the sub judice rule. All I am asking is that everyone should observe the sub judice rule and not refer to the cases that are now before the courts for consideration.

3.55 p.m.

The Lord President of the Council and Leader of the House of Commons (Mr. Michael Foot): I beg to move,
That the matter of publication of the Proceedings of the House, other than by order of the House, in so far as the Privileges of this House are concerned and the matter of the application of the sub judice rule during


Business Questions on Thursday 20th April be referred to the Committee of Privileges.
I shall be very brief in moving this motion. I believe that it would be desirable if we could proceed fairly rapidly, pass the motion and let all these matters be considered by the Committee of Privileges. This is the most orderly and fair way of dealing with the various matters that have been raised by motions upon the Order Paper.
It is certainly my belief that the motion we have tabled should and would enable the Committee of Privileges to discuss all the motions that have been put on the Order Paper, to make its comments on them and then report to the House. That also applies to the motion of my hon. Friend the Member for York (Mr. Lyon). It is the case that the only way in which the House can criticise the Speaker is when such a motion has been put down for debate. This is the right way to proceed. However, I do not believe that it would be possible for the Committee of Privileges to consider these matters without taking into account Mr. Speaker's ruling on that day and the motion on the Order Paper in the name of my hon. Friend the Member for York.
Having made clear to the House that this motion is intended to, and in fact does, secure a situation in which all these matters can be properly considered by the Committee, I suggest that the best course of action is for the House to pass the motion as speedily as possible, allow the Committee to look at all the questions and then report to the House.
No doubt when that report is made, there will have to be a debate because the matters raised in all the motions, and in my motion, too, are very important for the House. I am not minimising their importance, but precisely because of it, I believe that the best way to proceed is to enable the Committee of Privileges to review the whole situation.

3.57 p.m.

Mr. Francis Pym: We believe that it is the right and proper procedure to refer this whole matter to the Committee of Privileges. The events at business questions on 20th April and what was said on that occasion raise significant issues for the House. They gave rise to two rulings by you, Mr. Speaker, a number of Early-Day Motions and a

certain amount of speculation and uncertainty in the media and the Press.
At the time of these events, no hon. Member present was aware of any connection between the questions asked by four hon. Members of this House and a particular court case, because no objection was raised at the time and no attention was drawn to the matter.
Since then, several opinions have been expressed about the way in which those four hon. Members raised the question. It is not for me to comment on that, because in this case the reference to the Committee of Privileges is the right course.
However, there is some urgency here. A number of complex aspects of privilege and the reporting of our proceedings outside this House are raised and should be decided on with a minimum of delay. It is very important that there should be no repetition of what happened on 20th April.
Any breaching of our own rules is obviously an extremely serious matter which the Committee of Privileges will have to consider very carefully. But in the case of the sub judice rule, unless this is strictly observed the process of justice itself is in danger. That process is what the rule itself is designed to protect. It is the fundamental principle that we in this House should observe the orders of the court. I always understood that this was fully accepted by the House.
In addition to the application of the sub judice rule, there is also the important consideration of security—both personal and national. There may be, in some cases, very good reasons for a court to require anonymity in respect of some witness, apart from any consideration of protecting the judicial process. Even in the absence of any court case or legal proceedings, there are people in the security services whose identity should never be revealed for their own and their families' sake, for their own safety, and because it would be contrary to the public interest.
The House attaches much importance to the security of our country. It would be appropriate for the Committee of Privileges to consider the implications of this possibility which, in part, arises from the wider issue that we have to face of


the reporting of the proceedings of Parliament by live radio and the question whether the Official Report is to remain the only report exempt from a possible contempt of court.
I ask a question of the House, which I am sure will arise in the Committee of Privileges. Ought we not to consider the suggestion that was first made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet (Mr. Maudling) in The Times last Thursday that if it transpires that something has been said which ought not to have been said, Mr. Speaker should have a right, a duty or a responsibility to order those words to be expunged from the record? That is one way of dealing with the matter.

Mr. John Mendelson: No.

Mr. Pym: At any rate, it should be considered whether some such procedure for protection may be desirable now that the proceedings of Parliament are broadcast.

Mr. Mendelson: That would be most dangerous.

Mr. Pym: The hon. Member for Penistone (Mr. Mendelson) is entitled to hold that view. The matter was raised originally by my right hon. Friend the Member for Chipping Barnet, and I think that it is a matter for consideration.
The Lord President has assured us again, as he assured the House last Thursday, that the motion is drawn in the widest possible terms so that all the circumstances surrounding the events of that day can be considered by the Committee of Privileges, and I have no doubt that it will do so. The assurance of the Lord President was strong enough to enable my hon and learned Friend the Member for Runcorn (Mr. Carlisle) to feel that it would be right and proper to withdraw the Early-Day Motion which he had placed on the Order Paper in relation to the four Labour Members.
All these matters should now be considered by the Committee of Privileges with urgency. Accordingly, we on the Conservative Benches believe that the motion should be accepted.

4.2 p.m.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell: It is the custom of the House, when it

is found that a question of privilege should have precedence over the Orders of the Day, to commit the matter, usually without more ado, to the Committee of Privileges. I believe, however, that in a case such as the present one it is proper and advantageous that the House itself should have the opportunity of expressing a general view before it commits the question of privilege to the Committee of Privileges.
The origin of the matter was the issuing of a statement by the Director of Public Prosecutions which said:
It is not accepted … that the publication of his name"—
that is, of something said in the House—
would not be a contempt of court, even if it was part of a report of proceedings in the House.
I cannot imagine a more direct assault upon the essential privileges of the House than that proposition. It has from time immemorial been the privilege of the House to say in this place things that would lay the speaker open to proceedings if he said them elsewhere and to say them in this place without any danger of proceedings of any kind being brought on that account. If we did not have that privilege, we would be incapable of serving the purposes for which the House exists, either on behalf of the nation or on behalf of individual constituents, and our own personal responsibilities would be reduced to a very poor thing.
When this privilege was first established and defended, it was probably not primarily against proceedings of courts outside or against the consequences of what we said being reported outside that we sought protection. We sought it in the first instance for the security of debate and deliberation amongst ourselves and to secure entire candour in what was said amongst us. However, those days have long passed. Today it is impossible to distinguish between the privilege of hon. Members of the House to speak under privilege here and the right to have what they say here published. For if it were merely our privilege that we might say what we would in this place but what we said could not be reported outside, that would, in contemporary circumstances, serve very little purpose.
It seems to me, therefore, to follow that immunity from proceedings for the publication in any natural manner—


the reporting in any natural sense of that term—of anything said in the House is an essential part of the privileges of the House and that it cannot be infringed without infringing those privileges. The statement of the Director of Public Prosecutions did exactly that. He said that there would be liability to proceedings outside the House in respect of a publication
even if it was part of a report of proceedings in the House.
There was nothing in those words which distinguished what is called the Official Report—or Hansard—from other reports. Nor, I submit with great respect, is there any such real distinction. The Official Report enjoys certain privileges—not privilege in the sense in which we are debating it this afternoon—it enjoys a special position by favour of the House. You, Mr. Speaker, have certain duties and responsibilities in regard to the Official Report. However, it is not official in the sense that it is the record of what is decided in the House. That record is the Journal of the House. I do not think, therefore, that it is possible to distinguish between a report in a newspaper of proceedings in the House and a report in the Official Report.
The Official Report, by its nature is or purports to be complete. But in no natural sense can a report of a debate which was less than complete, if it was clearly intended as a genuine report of what was said, not be regarded as attracting, logically and necessarily, the protection of privilege.
Before this matter goes to the Committee of Privileges, it ought to be said in this place that the threat of proceedings against the genuine publication of what is said in the House is a high and manifest breach of the House's essential privileges. If that breach became established, the value of our privilege of freedom of speech would be gravely impaired.
It is the counterpart of our immunity against the outside world that we are under our own discipline. It is the counterpart that we make our own rules, that we enforce our own rules and that we discipline those of our membership who infringe those rules. That is how the question of our rule against reference to proceedings that are sub judice came to be brought into this matter.
I say in passing—and I trust that in doing so I am neither infringing the rule nor offering the least degree of disrespect—that I am not clear whether what was said by the hon. Member for Barking (Miss Richardson) and other hon. Members conflicted with the sub judice rule.

Mr. Speaker: I am sorry to interrupt the right hon. Gentleman, but he is getting dangerously near the case in which this very fact is a matter of dispute.

Mr. John Mendelson: How can we avoid it?

Mr. Speaker: By sending the matter to the Committee of Privileges.

Mr. Powell: If I may continue my speech—and I shall not detain the House unavoidably—I hope that I may be allowed to refer to the case that is sub judice—not to refer to its content, but to identify the case. I understand it to be the question whether contempt of court was or was not committed by certain other persons, not being Members of this House. I understand that the matter that is sub judice concerns whether there was a contempt of court by other persons doing, saying or publishing certain things. I must confess I cannot see that for an hon. Member to make a statement that does not concern the merits of that case can be a breach of the sub judice rule.
However, Mr. Speaker, if I have said anything that offends in that respect, I apologise. My only intention was to indicate that, having the sub judice rule and being conscious of its importance, we must nevertheless be extremely nice in ensuring what does and does not constitute the mention or discussion of matters that are sub judice.
As regards the breach in debate of this, that or any other rule of our procedure, it is the duty of hon. Members, to the best of their ability and knowledge and as they are advised at the time, to speak in accordance with the rules of the House; and it is the duty of the Chair, similarly subject, to prevent them from proceeding if they are in breach of the rules.
For example, an hon. Member who quoted a speech made in another place, other than by a representative of the Government, would be pulled up by the Chair and reminded that he was out of order in doing so. There is no difference


in kind between that intervention in an hon. Member's speech and an intervention by you, Mr. Speaker, or another occupant of the Chair, to point out that he is in breach of the sub judice rule.

Mr. Cranley Onslow: It is a difference of degree.

Mr. Powell: I am not sure that it is easy to distinguish between the degrees of heinousness of a breach of one rule or another.
What is open to censure on the part of an hon. Member is not that he lays himself open to being reminded by the Chair that he is breaking one of our rules of debate. We all do that from time to time. He lays himself open to censure if he persists in it; and if he were to persist in it contumeliously, no doubt the House would proceed to disciplinary measures against him.
The point that I want to establish is that even if there is a rule of the House that may be broken in debate, that does not annul what has been said up to that point nor place what has been said in a different category, for the purpose of our privilege, from anything else that is said in the House.
That brings me to the suggestion of the right hon. Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym), which I heard with a frisson of horror, that we might adopt a practice whereby if the rules of the House had been broken or—and I understood the right hon. Member to carry his suggestion further—where an hon. Member was thought by you, Mr. Speaker, or by the House to have mentioned matters that might be against the public interest, the order could be given that his words should be expunged from the record or that they should not attract the protection of privilege. I can think of nothing that would be more dangerous than this approach to our freedom of speech.
I am sure, Mr. Speaker, that you will acquit me of any suspicion of intending disrespect or criticism, but I should like to refer to something you said last Monday. You said:
Our privilege is something that was dearly obtained by our predecessors, but if it is abused it will be endangered.—[Official Report, 21st April 1978, Vol. 948, c. 866.]

With the greatest respect, a privilege which cannot be abused is no privilege, for that which constitutes abuse is a matter of opinion and it is part of the privilege of this House and of individual Members to be able to say in this place not only what they could not say outside without risk of process but to be able to say that to which grave objection is taken by every other hon. Member. Unless an hon. Member could do that, or if it were possible for his doing of it somehow to be undone, we would have lost our power to serve those who sent us here.
It so happens that, though I did not catch the actual words of the hon. Member for Barking on the relevant occasion, I took some objection, as a matter of taste, to her decision to utilise what I regard as her undoubted privilege. I am not on the matter of sub judice now; I am on the matter of privilege. Speaking loosely, I might have said that the hon. Lady was abusing her privilege. But there is no real distinction in this context between using and abusing privilege, or, if there is, it is a subjective decision—a matter of taste and of no more than of taste.

Mr. Reginald Maudling: Is it not a fact that, whereas an accusation can be withdrawn, a disclosure cannot? If an accusation is made contrary to the rules of order, it can be withdrawn. What is to be done about a disclosure which is made contrary to the rules of order?

Mr. Powell: I am coming to the question of disclosure and retroactivity, but for the moment I am concerned with the non-existence of a real distinction between the use and abuse of our privilege. Indeed, the only distinction is that a use of privilege is that of which hon. Members generally approve and an abuse is a use of which hon. Members generally, or perhaps the organs out of doors, happen to disapprove.

Mr. Onslow: Would the right hon. Gentleman therefore say that he is unable to draw a distinction between an inadvertent breach of privilege, based on ignorance, and a deliberate breach for purposes and motives that may be generally taken exception to inside and outside the House for the very best of national reasons?

Mr. Powell: I am sure that the use that the hon. Member for Barking made of her privilege—and it was a use of privilege, not a breach of privilege—was intentional. It is of the essence of our privilege that we can use it intentionally and not accidentally. On other hand, I am prepared to believe, and I think it probable, that her breach, if it were a breach, of the sub judice rule was unintentional. Nevertheless, the hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) will be aware that sometimes we in this House go as far as we can until the Chair draws our attention to the fact that we have strayed over the line. It is not unknown for the Chair to be slightly blind and slightly deaf.
I address myself now to the question put by the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Mr. Maudling): an hon. Member has said what, vis-à-vis the outside world, he undoubtedly has unqualified privilege to say; but though it appears that in doing so he has been in breach of the rules of the House, the words are said—nescit vox missa reverti—and they are reported. I maintain that those words said in this House up to the moment when the hon. Member, on the instruction of the Chair, resumed his seat are as much things said in this House as any others. They attract the same privilege in this House and, by parity of logic, must attract the same qualified privilege outside it. Any notion is to be dismissed that we can, as it were, retrospectively unsay that which has been found to have been said contrary to the internal rules of the House.
There is a final and recent aspect of this case which is interesting, although perhaps not fundamental. It is the fact that the reporting of this House, due to a decision of the House which I resisted and regret, is now taking place instantaneously as well as subsequently, or, at any rate, is sometimes taking place instantaneously as well as subsequently.
If we were to make a rule that the reporting of this House was somehow to be censored—that items which were in contravention of the rules of the House or, still more outrageously, items which if spoken elsewhere would attract proceedings were to be cut out—I shall tell the House what would follow. There would

have to be a switch in a certain place not far from here, and the question would be asked "Whose finger on the switch?" I shall describe, although I cannot identify, the individual whose finger would be on the switch. He must be an individual who has an even more profound knowledge of the rules of this House than yourself, Mr. Speaker; who has an encyclopaedic knowledge of what is in agitation in the courts of the land from Land's End to John o' Groats; and he must be a person of such swiftness of perception that he can anticipate the words that are about to issue from an hon. Member's mouth before he has spoken them.
This diverticulum of our difficulties we could excise, as I hope we shall excise it, by discontinuing what I regard as an undesirable practice. But we shall still be left with the necessity of defending, in the reporting outside as well as in the saying in this House, our undoubted and historic privilege and of distinguishing completely between the discipline which this House exercises over its Members and the privileges of this House.
The discipline which is exercised over Members is not in itself a matter of privilege. It becomes a matter of privilege, or, perhaps more accurately, of contempt, only if there is a breach of the rules of the House which is found to amount to contempt. But in themselves the rules of the House are not rules of privilege; they are internal rules of proceeding. Our maintenance of those rules can in no way impair either our privileges in this House or the implications for the reporting of our proceedings outside.
I hope that the Privileges Committee when it takes this matter in hand will be fully aware how profound are the matters upon which its advice is being sought. I hope that it will understand that it is the most objectionable uses of the privilege of this House which are the most vital to its functions. If we go back through the history of this House, we find that very often it was the possibility of things being said in this House which were detestable to those who heard them and to those outside which led to the broadening of our liberties. I would not wish this House, in this year, to be a party to the narrowing of those liberties again.

4.24 p.m.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: I agree with almost every word that fell from the lips of the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell). We have absolute privilege in this place to say and do as we please. There can be no qualification about that if we are to do the work for which we are sent here. Any suggestion that that privilege is qualified in this House by some regard to taste or to objections about security, or any other cause, must be set aside in the general good that flows from the fact that we have this privilege to raise in this place whatever we wish in any way that we regard as responsible, even if that thought is opposed by every other person in the House.
We are today debating a matter of great moment. The mere fact that it arises out of what some people may regard as a trivial matter in relation to the disclosure of a particular name does not, in my view, mean that we should underestimate the momentousness of what we are about to discuss.
In the great case of Stockdale v. Hansard they discussed the description of a particular book as being obscene in respect of a Committee of this House which was described in the Report of the House as "— by —, printed by Stockdale". It was then printed in a blue book by Hansard out of which arose a libel action. It was out of such small beginnings that one of the greatest debates began in our history about the limits of the privilege of Parliament.
I wish to deal with the way in which that issue—an issue which was never finally settled in the nineteenth century and is still open in "Erskine May"—was perhaps settled, I think perhaps inadvertently, Mr. Speaker, by a remark in your ruling of 21st April. May I approach the matter gradually?

Mr. Speaker: I think that would be better for me.

Mr. Lyon: I hope that in the matters I wish to raise I shall not be in breach of any rule of the House or of any sense of your own conduct, Mr. Speaker.
What happened on 20th April was that some of my hon. Friends mentioned a particular name. That name was an issue not in the original proceedings—and I do not think that reference to those original

proceedings could conceivably be said to be sub judice, because the question is whether it was sub judice of the proceedings which are taking place today. On that matter you have made a ruling that the issue must go to the Committee of Privileges for discussion. I want to say nothing which in any way contravenes your view on that.
It must at least be arguable that in the circumstances of the case which is now before the Divisional Court there was a breach of the sub judice rule which we laid down for ourselves. But it is important to distinguish between the rule that we laid down, of which there may have been a breach, and the rule which is laid down by the courts outside for discussion of matters by the public of matters pending in the courts. The courts have a sub judice rule, and one can be in contempt of court by discussing matters which are then currently before the courts, but our rule is a different sub judice rule. If my hon. Friends were in breach of a rule, they were in breach of our rule and not of the rule of the courts. Our privilege is to say whatever we like within the rules of the House, and only within those rules.
What I objected to, Mr. Speaker, was that when you came to deal with this matter on Friday 21st April you said:
were this warning to be followed by legal action
—and you were referring to the warning given by the Director of Public Prosecutions—
it would not be the first time that the reports of parliamentary debates in the Press had been the subject of proceedings in the courts. As it is stated on page 81 of "Erskine May":
'There is a distinction between the absolute privilege of Members speaking in the House … and the qualified privilege of a publisher reporting words spoken; in the latter case publication of parliamentary proceedings is protected, not specifically by privilege of Parliament, but on the analogy of the publication of proceedings in courts of justice.'
This principle was followed in the case of Wason v. Walter in 1868, and no claim has been made by Parliament, either at the time or since, that its privileges were infringed by this or any other similar action."—[Official Report, 21st April 1978; Vol. 948, c. 865–6.]
The correct impression of what happened in those days is contained on pages 200 and 201 of "Erskine May" which reads:
The House of Commons claims that its admitted right to adjudicate on breaches of


privilege implies in theory the right to determine the existence and extent of the privileges themselves. It has never expressly abandoned its claim to treat as a breach of privilege the institution of proceedings for the purpose of bringing its privileges into discussion or decision before any court or tribunal elsewhere than in Parliament. In other words, it claims to be the absolute and exclusive judge of its own privileges, and that its judgments are not examinable by any other court or subject to appeal.
On the other hand, the courts regard the privileges of Parliament as part of the law of the land, of which they are bound to take judicial notice. They consider it their duty to decide any question of privilege arising directly or indirectly in a case which falls within their jurisdiction, and to decide it according to their own interpretation of the law.
It was the supreme issue in the case of Stockdale v. Hansard that we decided not only what are our privileges but what are the limits of our privileges. There is no contest that we are totally responsible for what goes on within this place. But the issue in Stockdale v. Hansard was how much of that lapped outside into reports, fair reports, of what had happened inside.
The House never had any doubt in its own mind about how the issue should be resolved. There were three separate Select Committee reports upon the issue whether privilege extended beyond the confines of the House to reports that were made out side. I entirely agree with what the right hon. Member for Down, South said about there being no difference between Hansard and a report in The Times or indeed on the BBC. The issue must be the same in both cases.
I quote from the Second Report of the Select Committee, in which it discussed the possible alternatives. One was that the House could take to itself the power to decide the limits of privilege for reports outside by passing an Act. The recommendation of the Select Committee was:
The passing of an Act to enable the House for the future to publish its proceedings without having them questioned in a court of law, would, in the opinion of your Committee, be a virtual abandonment of the right which they have no doubt now belongs to this in common with the other House of Parliament, and which ought not, as they conceive, to be surrendered.
I quote, from the debate that followed that Select Committee report, from the speech of Sir Robert Peel, who at the time was Leader of the Opposition and I hope will be thought by those on the

Opposition Benches to be of some authority. He said:
the result is, a firm conviction that the House of Commons has the right to institute free inquiry upon every matter of public concern,—to elicit every fact connected with the subject of inquiry—and to publish the evidence taken, and the conclusions drawn from that evidence, either for the use of its Members, or, if it shall so think fit, for the use and information of the community at large.
Later in his speech he said, in relation to the challenge to that right by the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Denman, in the case of Stockdale v. Hansard:
I wish to speak with the highest respect for the person as well as for the station of the Lord Chief Justice.
He said that he bowed to the Lord Chief Justice's knowledge of the law with deference, but added:
but when his decisions impugn the privileges of Parliament, I have not only a right, but am bound by duty, to take cognizance of them. I do not believe that his judgment in the case of Stockdale v. Hansard, is maintainable. His direction to the jury, 'That the fact of the House of Commons having directed their printer to publish their Parliamentary Reports, is no justification for the publication, by them, of a Report containing a libel, upon any man.'—I believe to be erroneous.
Earlier he had said:
If the right of publication be a privilege necessary for the performance of the functions of the House of Commons, then, like other privileges, it is not liable to question in a court of law. The House of Commons is the exclusive judge of the exercise of it.
My understanding, after reading through those debates and the reports that followed, was that the House never resiled from that position.
It is true, Mr. Speaker, as you pointed out in your ruling on 21st April, that subsequently in a case in the Queen's Bench, the case of Wason v. Walter, which decided that qualified privilege was attached to fair report of what happened in this place, the Lord Chief Justice said that the courts were entitled to decide what was the limit of privilege outside. He called in aid the decision of Lord Chief Justice Denman. But it is quite clear from our proceedings in this House that we never accepted that.
Apart from the historical antiquity of all that, does it really matter in these days? In my submission, it does. It is of grave importance to the proceedings of the House that we make it clear that we, and not the courts, decide what is the


limit of privilege. Is it to be said, for instance—and the point has been made by the right hon. Gentleman—that the BBC or the IBA were in contempt of the courts which are discussing this issue today by broadcasting the names that were spoken on Thursday, 20th April? That is a matter of the greatest moment to the broadcasting authorities.
It is true that the Attorney-General has said that he does not wish to proceed, but who can say whether an Attorney-General would always take that view? Who can say that he, and he alone, would have the right to prosecute in similar circumstances? It must be laid down that the courts cannot intervene.
But there is a wider aspect. We are progressing gradually, and I think unfortunately, to a conflict between the courts and Parliament. There is every evidence over recent years that the courts are bending their muscles in order to take on the Houses of Parliament, either corporately or individually, in deciding where the line must be drawn in determining who is responsible for the liberties of our people.
I think that it is absolutely right that the courts, within their proper sphere, should try to draw that line. But it is equally clear that we within our sphere should also know where to draw that line. I believe that it is more important that we should know than that the courts should know, because we are at any rate accountable to the people, as we are elected by them.
When we, if we, ever go to the stage of adopting a Bill of Rights—there are those who say that because we have adopted the European Convention we have already done so—what we shall really be saying is not that there is one source which is wiser than another but simply that the decision would be made in one place rather than another, that the decision about what are the limits of statutory authority or power should be made by the courts and not by this House or by Parliament generally. In that situation there are bound to be conflicts.
I would not have troubled the House with this discussion of what might be an esoteric point if it were simply a question of this particular issue. I think that the matter can be resolved sensibly and fairly

by the Committee of Privileges. What I am worried about, Mr. Speaker, is that the ruling you made on 21st April may prejudice the discussion of some momentous constitutional clash which may emerge in the future, because it will then be said that the whole issue was decided by the statement of Mr. Speaker Thomas on 21st April 1978 that the courts outside have the right to determine the extent of privilege outside, and that therefore it is a matter for the courts to decide.
I want to make the position plain by registering my protest now. I hope that in due course the House will have an opportunity of voting and expressing its view and that it will make it absolutely clear that we decide the extent of privilege not only here but outside.
If it is thought by any of those who listen to us or read about our discussions that we are asserting a claim to be above the law, I say that we are asserting that claim only to a limited extent, to the extent that it is necessary for us to perform our duties. There is no doubt about our right to that privilege here. The argument has been about that right outside.
I end with a statement I found in an account of all these matters called "Printer to the House":
But observe, too, the consequence had Lord Denman's judgment been allowed to stand. The evolution of Parliament from 1840 to the present day would have been rendered impossible. What is the use of a Parliament whose activities cannot be reported?

4.40 p.m.

Mr. Mark Carlisle: On various occasions in the past I have both spoken and voted against sending a motion to the Committee of Privileges because on the whole I take the view that Parliament is not normally at its most dignified when, rushing to the protection of its privileges, it seeks to refer to the Committee comments made by people outside the House. On this occasion I believe that the motion tabled by the Leader of the House is totally justified and one which I hope the House will pass.
Whatever our views on the merits of this issue, I do not think that anyone could suggest that there are other than vitally important principles at stake. There are in this one subject two separate issues. There is the issue of the right of the


Press to report accurately that which is said in this House, and there is the issue of the way in which hon. Members choose to make use of the privileges of this House. They are two important issues and to my mind they are totally separate.
The right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) said that this matter started with the statement made by the Director of Public Prosecutions on the evening of 20th April with regard to his advice to the Press as to its right to publish what had been said in this House. With respect, I believe that that was not the commencement but the second stage. The commencement was the decision of hon. Members—their motives from my point of view are irrelevant—under the cloak of privilege to name someone to whom the courts had granted anonymity. These are two equally important but separate issues.

Mr. Christopher Price: Does the hon. and learned Member not think that to use the phrase "to whom the courts had granted anonymity." when that is the issue before the courts is a little injudicious?

Mr. Carlisle: I am using my words carefully. The decision of the hon. Member for Barking (Miss Richardson) was clear. It was to use the privileges of this House to name someone to whom she understood anonymity had been granted by the order of a court.
Both of these issues are vitally important. My only criticism of the motion would be that it has put the cart before the horse. It is really the question of the conduct on the Floor of the House on 20th April which comes to be considered before the question of publication of what happened. It was for that reason that I, on this first issue, tabled an Early-Day Motion asking that the conduct of the hon. Members during that Question Time be referred to the Committee of Privileges. It was on the assurance given by the Leader of the House last Thursday at Business Question Time that I withdrew that motion.
As the Leader of the House made clear, he had tabled a motion in the widest possible terms which, he assured the House, embraced all of the motions standing on the Order Paper. Naturally,

I was happy to withdraw my motion I believe that it is essential that the Committee of Privileges should give careful consideration to what happened on that occasion. Mr. Speaker has said in his statement that in his view it was a breach of the sub judice rule. I take the point made by the right hon. Member for Down, South that the rules of this House are something totally different from the privileges of this House.
The rules of this House are that by which we agree to abide in the conduct of our debates. The privileges of this House are something we claim to ourselves to prevent ourselves from being open to action from outside. Nevertheless, I do not believe that it was ever intended that we should use the cloak of privilege to name people who, for whatever reason, may not have been named in other proceedings in a court of law in this country.
It is important that the House, through the Committee of Privileges, should decide its attitude to matters of that kind. The right hon. Member for Down, South said that we cannot abuse privilege, we can only use it. I found it difficult to follow that part of his speech when he suggested that there is no difference here. I would have thought that the main difference must be in the motivation of the person who says the words concerned. For example, if I, by use of the privileges of this House, chose to make an attack on someone's integrity, believing my attack to be justified and to be in the public interest, I am clearly using the privilege which Parliament grants me. If, on the other hand, although I do not believe a word of an allegation that I have been told, I nevertheless choose to make use of the privileges of this House for the purpose of mounting that attack in the justification of which I do not believe and if I am motivated by malice against the individual, to my mind I am abusing the privileges of this House.

Mr. Powell: The hon. and learned Member is making the same distinction that I sought to make, namely, that the difference is a subjective difference. No hon. Member can know the motives of another hon. Member. We may feel that we know what these motives are and that we dislike the hon. Member and disapprove of his behaviour. But still the distinction between use and abuse remains


subjective. I do not think that there is any difference between us.

Mr. Carlisle: I accept that the subjective intention of the individual is the difference between abuse or use of privilege. But I think that other people can objectively assess what is the motivation and decide whether that has been an abuse or a use. This is one of the matters which the Committee will clearly have to consider.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: The privilege is to say anything on the Floor of the House for whatever motivation one cares. It is obtainable by any hon. Member. Is the hon. and learned Member saying that the Committee of Privileges could rule that in some way the hon. Members who uttered that name were not covered by privilege at the time they did so? If that is not what he is saying, I do not understand what he is saying.

Mr. Carlisle: I am not saying that. Obviously the privilege is absolute of the individual. On the other hand, surely in any civilised debating chamber there must be some rules and some control over the abuse of that privilege. The point I am making is that it is a proper matter for the Committee of Privileges to consider whether, taking the right hon. Gentleman's terms, by making use of the privilege those hon. Members have abused that privilege and, if they have done so, what advice should be given to the House by the Committee.
Let me give a totally different example. The fact is that for many reasons of a different nature the courts do from time to time grant anonymity to people who appear before them whether they be children of a tender age or people involved in divorce or wardship cases. More recently, Parliament has legislated to give anonymity to both victims and defendants in rape cases.
I do not believe that any hon. Member opposite, particularly one of the four who made use of his privilege on this occasion, would for a moment suggest that, were a Member on the Floor of the House to use the privilege of the House for the purpose of announcing the name of either the complainant or the defendant in a rape case, other hon. Members should not make immediate complaint that he had

abused his privilege. Therefore, I believe that it is open and possible for the House, through the Committee of Privileges, to assess objectively whether it considers a privilege has been used or abused and, if it has been abused, whether it should make any recommendation to the House.

Mr. Alexander W. Lyon: I do not want to engage in argument across the Floor, but the issue is of crucial importance to the Committee of Privileges. It cannot be said that, simply because we use privilege in a way that is discreditable to us personally, there is any breach of the rules of the House. The only purpose of the Committee of Privileges must be to decide whether there was a breach of the sub judice rule and whether that involves any sanction. That must be at issue when one recollects that, while in the case of the rape victim there is statutory power for the courts to make an order for anonymity, in this case there is no such power.

Mr. Carlisle: With respect, I think that the hon. Gentleman is misunderstanding what I am saying. I thought that I was conceding that there was a distinction, as the right hon. Member for Down, South said, between the breach of the rules of this House, which in itself is clearly a matter which the Committee of Privileges can look at, and whether the way in which a person chooses to use the privilege of the House is in itself an abuse of that privilege such as would amount to a contempt of the House. It seems to me that both of those issues arise in this case.
As the right hon. Gentleman said, the one may be deliberate, the other may be unintentional. All I am saying is that I felt it right to put my motion down on the Order Paper because I believe that there is a serious principle here, a dangerous precedent for the future, if the House does not come to a view as to what attitude it is taking to matters of this kind. I say that without attempting in any way to comment on the seriousness or unseriousness of this issue.
I turn to the second matter—the right to publish the proceedings of this House. The right hon. Gentleman appeared to suggest that what the Director of Public Prosecutions had done was clearly an intervening in the privileges of this House. With respect, I would have thought that,


while the right hon. Gentleman and the hon. Member for York may well be right in arguing that immunity from all proceedings should take fair and accurate reporting of this House to the Press, it is highly questionable whether that is the legal position. It is therefore vital that this issue should be looked at by the Committee of Privileges.
A great deal has been said in the newspapers about the fact that the Press, it is clear, has qualified privilege in reporting the proceedings of the House. The Press seems to assume that to mean that, provided it is a fair and accurate report, no action of any kind can ever come about as a result of their publication.
I believe that that is a total misunderstanding of the defence of qualified privilege, which has always been a defence purely to an action by the individual for defamation against a paper. If it be a fact that the position of the Press vis-à-vis Parliament is the same as that of the Press vis-à-vis the courts—let us take that as a starting point—clearly, if the Press chooses to give a fair and accurate report, even if it turns out to be totally false and defamatory, no one can bring action against it.
But that does not mean that, by making that fair and accurate report, one may not be in oneself breaking an order of the court. I give the most obvious example. If a court of law in the course of a proceeding orders that the defendant Mark Carlisle shall hereafter be called "Mr. C", and a newspaper announces that evening that in court Mr. Justice So-and-So had announced that the defendant Mark Carlisle should be called "Mr. C", clearly that is a fair and accurate account of what happened. Equally clearly, it would not allow the person concerned to bring action for damages even if it were false. But equally it would be no defence of the order of the court banning the name to say "We have merely announced the order of the court banning the name."
Therefore, where we have an area in which there is considerable doubt how wide are the limitations of privilege outside this House, we should say, in fairness and without prejudging the issue in any way, that someone who is then appealed to by the Press for advice as to the legal situation is in a difficult position and may well be misleading the

Press if he gives advice different from that which in fact he gave.
I totally share the view of the hon. Member for York that not only the extent and limitation of the privilege within this House but also the privilege outside this House of the reporting of matters that go on inside this House should be a matter for Parliament and not for the courts. With that I agree, and it is for that reason and because this individual instance raises that issue in its clearest and starkest forms that I hope that the matter will go to the Committee of Privileges so that it can make its recommendations on the point.

4.56 p.m.

Mr. Michael English: I, too, hope that this matter goes to the Committee of Privileges, and I agree with the hon. and learned Member for Runcorn (Mr. Carlisle) as far as he went. We all ought to be plain that the term "qualified privilege" only applies to the law of defamation and has nothing to do with this issue.
I myself was glad that Mr. Speaker gave two rulings, one on the Monday and one on the Friday. I do not blame Mr. Speaker, as a man not trained in the law, for including in his statement on the Friday the phrase "qualified privilege". I think that he was advised and misadvised by other people. I am grateful for and glad of the fact that on that relevant Monday he did not use the phrase. It is really utterly irrelevant to import this question of absolute and qualified privilege into this matter. That, as the hon. and learned Member for Runcorn said, has relevance to the law of defamation, as to whether a person can sue another person about whether he has been libelled or slandered, but it has nothing to do with this particular issue. It would be very helpful to everyone if we now forgot it.
I think that my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House and his predecessors from all parties have forgotten that the late Lord Donovan once chaired a Joint Committee of both Houses, consisting also of Lord Selkirk, Lord Stow Hill, formerly Sir Frank Soskice, QC, of this House House, a gentleman who at the time was described in the report concerned as Mr. Samuel Silkin, Sir John Foster, a QC formerly of this House and now retired,


Mr. Charles Pannell, formerly of this House and now a peer, and myself. That Committee produced reports that have never been dealt with. It would have saved an awful lot of trouble if they had been. It isued two reports, one on broad casting and one on the particular issues which are relevant to this case. I am not suggesting for a moment that every single recommendation of that Joint Committee of both Houses of Parliament on the publication of proceedings should have been approved by both Houses of Parliament. I am suggesting that they should have been discussed.
If I may say so, my right hon. Friend—not alone but with his predecessors on both sides of the House—is responsible for ignoring this issue and forgetting it, hoping that it would never arise. Now it has turned up in a different form. We all expected it to turn up in the form of a private individual suing another private individual because he had been libelled or slandered. It did not turn up like that. If my right hon. Friend says that the late Lord Donovan's Joint Committee did not cover every point, he would be absolutely right. As a Member of that Committee, I would agree with him. It has turned up in the sense of contempt of court, and in that sense, of course, all the law about qualified privilege which relates to defamation has nothing to do with the issue.
If one court issues an order and another court issues an alternative order, or a different order, then the mere subject has a clear responsibility, and that is, if he can, to obey them both. If, for example, the High Court says "You must not write it", and this Court of Parliament says "You must not write it", the results are clear. It means "You must not write it or print it or put it on television or on radio." There is no real doubt about that. The problem arises when one court—it does not matter which—says "You must not do it" and the other court says "You shall do it", in effect, or "You may do it." That is where the problem really arises.
With what we usually call the courts of law there is no tremendous problem even in that, for ultimately the difficulty can be reconciled by going from the High Court to the Court of Appeal and then to the House of Lords sitting as a

court. In the end, it would be found—I notice that one of my lawyer hon. Friends is kindly nodding his head—that the House of Lords, sitting as a court, would say that it either agreed or did not agree with the order of the particular court.
That is fine. All the precedents on this matter go back to the seventeenth or eighteenth centuries, when the House of Lords, sitting as a court, was exactly the same as the House of Lords sitting as a legislative body. Nowadays, the House of Lords sitting as a court is a body of lawyers, and usually it is a very small number of them. It is usually about five, although it can theoretically be a larger number. It certainly could not be the 1,000 or more people who theoretically belong to the House of Lords sitting as a legislative body.
The arguments on this question go back well into the seventeenth century, and there is nothing at all which says that the House or Lords' rulings are privileged over those of the House of Commons. We do not really need to argue that particular point. No one would argue that the House of Commons, sitting as a court, can prevail over the House of Lords sitting as a court, or the House of Lords sitting as a legislative body.
My hon. Friend the Member for Penistone (Mr. Mendelson) suggests something that I shall translate as meaning "That has"—something I will put in square brackets, as it were—"to do with it". He is entitled to his opinion, and that is actually what this particular bit of law is all about. If he wants to say something else, I have no doubt that he will in due course. But in the end this House of Commons must prevail. There is no question of any contempt of court. There is no question of any contempt by one court of another.
In the seventeenth century, as my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House well knows, Chief Justice Coke used to issue injunctions to prevent the Court of Common Pleas from interfering with his Court of King's Bench. That was decided in the seventeenth century. It was roughly decided—in many cases by force—that the courts of law had to obey the High Court of Parliament, and since the early part of this century the rest of the High Court of Parliament has had to obey this part of it.
If necessary, we could pass an Act of Parliament to say what we determined, and, if the House of Lords disagreed with it, this part of the High Court of Parliament, this House of Commons, could still pass it. There is no question as to which shall prevail. I think that is the essential point. It is not whether any other court, in its jurisdiction in this United Kingdom, can issue any order. It can issue any order it likes.
But if it is a puisne court, as the lawyers would call it—a court of first instance—it can be overruled by a court of appeal. A court of appeal can be overruled by another court of appeal, namely, the House of Lords sitting as a court of appeal, if it is a case of contempt of court. If it is the House of Lords sitting as a law court, then on a question of the privileges of Parliament it can be overruled by the House of Lords sitting as a House of Lords. If it is the House of Lords sitting as such, it can in the end be overruled by this House of Commons representing the people of the United Kingdom. If that principle does not prevail, then no principle other than that can prevail in a democracy.

5.7 p.m.

Mr. Emlyn Hooson: It seems to me that there is a good deal of confusion about what is parliamentary privilege, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, the defence of privilege in the law of defamation. The defence of privilege in the law of defamation, whether it is absolute or qualified, is a totally different matter from the privilege of the House of Commons. The privilege of the House of Commons is absolute, and it is absolute to this House.
I disagree with the hon. and learned Member for Runcorn (Mr. Carlisle) when he says that it is absolute to the individual. It is not. It is absolute, surely, to the House. It is qualified in relation to the individual, because there are certain rules of the House which put a limit, to a certain extent, on the individual's use of it, in that there may be certain consequences from what the House regards as personal misuse of privilege. But it is very important for the Committee of Privilege to bear in mind this complete difference between the two senses in which we use the same word "privilege".
The second issue which appears to me to arise in the case is whether parliamentary privilege affords a defence to an action taken for contempt of court. That is the matter with which we are concerned here. If the newspapers had reported verbatim what was said in the House on a certain afternoon and those reports were not made by order of the House, would the fact that there was parliamentary privilege extend to those newspapers to give them, or their editors, a defence to an action for contempt of court?
I am bound to say that I cannot see the logic in the distinction between the privilege which attaches to a correct and verbatim report of the proceedings of this House by order of the House and a correct and verbatim report which is not by order of the House. Why should Hansard be privileged and The Times and The Guardian, reporting exactly the same thing, not be privileged? I think that it would be very difficult for any court to draw the line and to say that there is a distinction. If it were drawn it would certainly be an artificial distinction.
The hon. Member for York (Mr. Lyon) mentioned the potential clash between the courts of this country and Parliament. The potential clash has always been there. At times it appears to be coming to the surface, and it is avoided, I think, by the good sense of the courts and the good sense of Parliament.
Clearly, when Members misuse privilege—I am using the term in its widest sense—it is difficult at the time to gauge whether it has been misused. For example, the late Colonel Marcus Lipton named Philby in this House when Philby was still a member of the Civil Service and living in this country. There were cries of "Disgraceful" and so on in this House. He was using parliamentary privilege. If at the time he had been challenged as to his motivation, I do not know how this House would have divided as to what it thought his motivation was.

Mr. Christopher Price: Is it not also true that Mr. Richard Crossman, Lord Wigg and the right hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) raised the whole Profumo affair in exactly the same way on the Floor of this House—in a way that might have been said by some people to be an abuse of privilege?

Mr. Hooson: I think that is right. The only point I wish to make is that it is terribly difficult to establish whether a person has a right or a wrong motivation at the time when he is using the privilege.

Mr. Powell: Or ever.

Mr. Hooson: I hear the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) say "Or ever". That may well be so. The further one gets away from the event, the easier it is to appreciate whether there was justification for using parliamentary privilege. It must be used very carefully, otherwise it can lead to an immediate clash with the courts.
The hon. and learned Member for Runcorn suggested that if any of the four hon. Members who named a person in the House had, for example, heard someone else mention the name of a complainant in a rape case, he or she would have been the very first to claim that privilege was being misused. In my view hon. Members must strike a delicate balance between the use of their absolute privilege and its abuse in such a way as to offend against the proceedings of the courts.

Mr. Edward Lyons: Is there not one distinction between the matters we are discussing now and the type of occurrence where Marcus Lipton named Philby? On that occasion, no prior order of the court was in existence or alleged to be in existence.

Mr. Hooson: I think that there are distinctions in this case.

Mr. Robert Kilroy-Silk: rose—

Mr. Hooson: I must deal with the intervention before it slips my mind. I think there is a distinction between each case. That distinction is there. But I do not think it alters the general principle of the matter. It seems to me that if we had a repetition of the kind of identification that was made in those Questions, we would be heading for a first-class collision with the courts. The courts could not stand by and, as it were, watch parliamentary privilege being used as a cloak to affect its own procedure.
That is why this House has to be so careful in the framing of the rules. Where the right hon. Member for Down, South

is right is to draw the clear distinction between the rules and privilege. If, in fact, there is the use of parliamentary privilege by an individual Member, and this House as a whole feels that he has misused it—whether it is used as a term of taste or otherwise—then it is up to the House to take action and use its own rules to discipline that Member. But that does not deal with the point at issue in this particular reference to the Committee of Privileges.

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: My hon. and learned Friend the Member for Bradford, West (Mr. Lyons), and many other hon. Members, have today said that there was an order of the court. I think we ought to clarify this. This is a matter which is still largely in dispute and about which there is a great deal of doubt. For hon. Members constantly to reiterate—as if it were a fact—that there was an order of the court prohibiting the use of a particular name is prejudicing this debate and the proceedings that may follow from it.

Mr. Deputy Speaker (Sir Myer Galpern): Order. That matter is sub judice at the moment.

Mr. Edward Lyons: On a point of order, Mr. Deputy Speaker. My hon. Friend the Member for Ormskirk (Mr. Kilroy-Silk) cannot have been listening to me. I said "A court order or a court order alleged to be in existence". In my submission it does not make any difference whether it actually existed or whether the Crown at this stage simply alleges it to exist.

Mr. Hooson: In so far as the motion before the House deals with privilege, it is on a very narrow issue. It virtually asks what is the status of a correct report of the proceedings of Parliament which is published, but not by order of this House. That is the matter at issue. It seems to me that there is no dispute about the fact that the editors of Hansard are protected from an action for contempt of court. The only question at issue on the privilege of the matter is whether the editors of The Times or the Guardian are similarly afforded a defence in relation to an action for contempt of court.

Mr. English: I am glad that the hon. and learned Gentleman ignored the question about whether a clearly subordinate court of law issued an order. That is not


really relevant. I am also glad that he ignored the question whether the law of defamation is involved. It clearly is not. Will he kindly address himself to this particular question: is it not possible that Members of this House are allowed to say something which may not be published outside the House?

Mr. Hooson: I only regret that the hon. Gentleman did not ignore the matters that I have ignored. If he will forgive me, I shall proceed to complete what I was saying. The second part of the reference concerns
the application of the sub judice rule during Business Questions".
Again we have to draw the distinction between our own sub judice rule and the legal sub judice rule. There is a distinction between the two. I greatly regret that there was an identification of the officer. I often feel that Government are far too concerned with secrecy in these matters but, nevertheless, it was highly regrettable that the officer was named.
What we are concerned with—and this distinction has not been sufficiently drawn—is the operation of the sub judice rule of this House, which is very different from considering the position of the newspapers and their relations with the sub judice rule of the courts. I hope that the Committee of Privileges will draw that distinction.

5.18 p.m.

Mr. Raphael Tuck: I was interested in what the right hon. Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym) said about the suggestion of the right hon. Member for Chipping Barnet (Mr. Maudling). I tried to intervene at the time, but was unable to do so. That suggestion is interesting, but it has a great flaw. Assuming for the moment—without wishing to pass any strictures upon the suggestion—that it is desirable in the future to have Mr. Speaker say that a statement shall be expunged, that does not provide the real solution, because there is a Gallery to this House of Commons, and there are also the broadcasting media. It will already have gone both to the Gallery and to the broadcasting media even if Mr. Speaker says that it shall be expunged. Therefore, that is no solution to the problem.
However, this whole business could have been avoided. The right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) referred to the privileges of this House but he also referred to its discipline. It is the undoubted privilege of a Member of this House to say anything he likes in this House, even if the matter is sub judice, were it not for the fact that the House, in its wisdom, has evolved a rule or a convention that when matters are awaiting adjudication by a court they shall not be mentioned by any Member of Parliament.

Mr. Robin Maxwell-Hyslop: Is the hon. Gentleman really claiming that there is nothing that a Member may not say in this House? For instance, what if it is treasonable, insulting to the Sovereign or insulting to a Head of State of another country? Is the hon. Gentleman saying that, under privilege, treason can be committed in this House with impunity?

Mr. Tuck: I was suggesting nothing of the kind. That is another matter entirely. But there is nothing to prevent a Member from saying what he pleases, because it is the undoubted privilege of this House. This liberty, however, is modified by a rule or convention of the House that when a matter is sub judice or awaiting adjudication nothing shall be said about it. If the House of Commons were to extend this rule to cases in which a judge has said in court that the name of some person or some matter shall not be disclosed, for any reason whatever—it may be for reasons of security, or for reasons of the safety of the person himself—the very disastrous situation that has occurred would not occur at all, because no one would be able in this House, by reason of the rule, to mention the name that has been prohibited by the court or about which the advice has been given by the court against mentioning it. I would suggest that Parliament amends its rules to include such a case where a judge has said that a name shall not be mentioned.
It must be recognised, in a situation such as the present one, that the media generally are in an invidious position. Assuming for the moment that it would be a criminal offence for newspapers or other media to publish any statement made against the wishes or order of a


court, that could apply not only to the newspapers but even to Hansard; but could it, or should it apply to the broadcasting media? The broadcasting of our proceedings is live broadcasting, and the broadcasting media have no redress whatever against a name's being mentioned and transmitted to the public.
I would suggest to my right hon. Friend that my suggested extension of the sub judice rule be adopted without delay.

5.21 p.m.

Mr. Cranley Onslow: I want to intervene briefly to put a point of view from someone who is not a lawyer and to suggest that my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Runcorn (Mr. Carlisle) was right when he tried—I think that he succeeded—to draw a distinction between the two issues that are at stake here. One affects the media and the other affects the House, although they interlock. It is very important that they should be resolved.
The Press and the radio must look to us to settle this matter as quickly as possible. I doubt very much whether they would regard the suggestion of some kind of sidelining or censoring procedure as a workable solution. The hon. Member for Watford (Mr. Tuck) has pointed out the complication of instantaneity, which would seem to rule it out entirely. So far as Hansard is concerned, I can see no way in which we can ask for asterisks to be inserted by the Editor without that leading to a certain lack of confidence in the proceedings at a very early date. However, the hon. Member for Watford is on a good point when he says that we may need to change our rules. We face a new situation. Perhaps we shall have to adjust to that and bring in new rules to cope with it.
What the motives and intentions of the Gang of Four may have been on the day in question, I do not know. I think that the Committee will have an interesting time inquiring into that.
However, leaving all that aside, we know—we have now had evidence—that it is possible, through the changed situation, for a serious situation to arise. I am not saying that the situation which has arisen is the most serious which can be conceived. For lawyers it clearly raises a serious point. Concerning the issue of

national security, the issues are not necessarily as serious as they might otherwise be. I can think of worse things that might have been said in this place and reported instantaneously over the air.
If such a situation can arise, we must be alive to it. If we cannot prevent its happening by any mechanical device, as seems extremely unlikely, the only thing we can hope to do is to frame some rule which will place upon each of us a known and precise discipline which we infringe at our peril.
It is impossible for the House ever to say what the consequences may be, because the House has an inglorious habit of breaking its own disciplines. I hesitate to say anything which might be thought to be a comment in any way upon the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr Powell), but he is evidence in our midst that it is possible for one Member to choose to disregard the collective decision of the House of Commons and not to be penalised as a result—in the matter of the Register of Members' Interests.
It is perfectly possible—and I dare say that the right hon. Member for Down South will be the first to agree with this—for there to be an infringement of the rule relating to the naming of names or the disclosing of information in this House, and it will always be for the House itself to decide in the light of each case what it does about it. That is no doubt right. But what is important is that those who make the conscious decision to challenge the rule—such as the hon. Member for Barking (Miss Richardson)—should know what the penalties are to which they are laying themselves open.
I hope that when the Committee considers this matter it will bear very closely on that particular point and will consider that we may need to evolve some new process in this respect, so that the compulsion to challenge procedure is no longer felt.
As I have said, I do not know what the motives of the Gang of Four were, but the Lord President will know that I have challenged convention—at least, according to him—from time to time in recent months in an attempt to get some further inquiry into the question whether the previous Prime Minister accurately informed the House or was himself accurately informed about whether John


Stonehouse, who used to be a Member of this House, was or was not in the service of the Czechoslovak intelligence service. He has castigated me for that, but the fact that he has done so will not necessarily stop me. But the fact that I seem unable to get any further in this respect and the fact that the Gang of Four were driven to do what they did in their case suggest to me that we may be in need of some new procedure that will avoid conflict, confrontation and, most important of all, grave danger to the national interest being caused within this Chamber. It must be incumbent on us all to see that that does not happen I hope very much that my right hon. Friend the Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym) and other Members of the Committee will think very seriously about that particular aspect of the matter.

5.27 p.m.

Mr. Christopher Price: Perhaps I may comment on two things that the hon. Member for Woking (Mr. Onslow) has said. He used the two phrases which have been mentioned from the Conservative Front Bench already—"as quickly as possible" and "some new processes." Anyone who has listened to the speech of the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) and then thinks that in some sort of way this very substantial issue can be dealt with as quickly as possible by the Committee of Privileges is trivialising what is a crucially important issue of the privileges of this House.
I feel that when the Committee gets down to work it may find that the speeches of the right hon. Member and of my hon. Friend the Member for York (Mr. Lyon) have highlighted points on which it will take the Committee a very long time indeed to come to some sort of agreement. The idea that the hon. Member for Woking has put forward, a sort of stated table of penalties for various misdemeanours, utterly misconceives what the centre of the whole issue is.

Mr. Onslow: The hon. Member must not put words into my mouth. I did not suggest a table of penalties. What I suggested was that hon. Members who chose a certain course of action should know what the ultimate consequences of that may be.

Mr. Price: That is a point of view, but subjects arise many times in this House

about which people feel very strongly. The hon. Member for Henley (Mr. Heseltine) recently felt so strongly about something that happened that he was moved to grab the Mace and wave it around in the air. The House did not on that occasion see fit to produce some sort of penalty. I think that the House recognises strong feelings.
It is a pity that the Attorney-General did not decide that he could find time to listen to this debate. His opposite number on the Opposition Front Bench has come to the debate. I think that it is the sort of debate in the House of Commons in which either the Attorney-General or one of his Law Officers might have put in an appearance. It is a debate worth listening to, and I think that reading it in Hansard is not quite the same thing.
There are two ways in which I agree with the right hon. Member for Down, South. In my view the broadcasting of the House is not central to the issue. For what it is worth—I do not put any weight on this—the decision was taken deliberately to mention the name at a time outside the hours when the broadcasts were being made in a simultaneous fashion so that the BBC and the ITN could take their decision in the same way as the papers about the use that they would make of it.

Mr. Raphael Tuck: That may not always be so.

Mr. Price: It may not be, and I did not want to lay great weight on the point. I mentioned it only in passing.
Various suggestions have been made by the right hon. Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym) and by other hon. Members about an erasure system, a system that exists in a sort of way in the courts of justice where something can be almost but not exactly struck from the record. That suggestion shows once again a lack of understanding of the crucial issues that are at the centre of the debate. Once we start creating somebody within the House who, as the right hon. Member for Down, South said, has the power to flick a switch or cross out a word, there is no point in having a parliament or carrying on as a democratic assembly.
My next argument stems from a comment made by my right hon. Friend the


Leader of the House in answer to me during business questions last Thursday. It concerns the scope of the matter that the Privileges Committee has to consider. We have seen the motion on the Order Paper, but my right hon. Friend referred us to what he called the Pickthorn motion, which appears in Hansard of 30th October 1947. At that time the House had considered a crucial issue that went to the Privileges Committee. The House passed a motion which to all intents and purposes said "Whatever motion is referred to the Privileges Committee the Committee has the right but not the duty to consider matters beyond that."
The motion read:
That when a matter of complaint of breach of privilege is referred to a Committee, such Committee has, and always has had, power to inquire not only into the matter of the particular complaint, but also into facts surrounding and reasonably connected with the matter of the particular complaint, and into the principles of the law and custom of privilege that are concerned.
That motion arose out of the issue connected with Mr. W. J. Brown, the Member of Parliament for Rugby. Mr. Brown felt strongly that his case before the Privileges Committee had been gravely injured because the Attorney-General at that time, the noble Lord, Lord Shawcross, had prevented the Privileges Committee from inquiring into a whole range of issues into which he felt it should have inquired.
I quote one sentence of Mr. Pickthorn, who moved the motion. He said:
It is possible … to demonstrate that in recent Privilege cases
—he meant the one then before the House—
there has been a tendency on the part of some persons concerned 
—he meant the Attorney-General and then used a metaphor from hunting that I do not quite understand—
to hunt their hares too tight, because, I suppose, they are a little afraid of slipping on to other scents".—[Official Report, 30th October 1947; Vol. 443, c. 1242.]
Although the remit of the Privileges Committee in the second half of the motion speaks about
the sub judice rule … on … 20th April

I should like to get it on record, as I tried to do last Thursday, that the Privileges Committee is at liberty to investigate the sub judice rule in toto. I hope that it will take that opportunity.
I have been raising the whole impact of the sub judice rule for 10 years. There was a short gap when I was thrown out of the House. It is on record that when the Enfield Grammar School case was before the courts I was rapidly silenced by one of your predecessors, Mr. Deputy Speaker, Lord Fletcher, for saying something about that case when I should not have been doing so. When the Tameside case came up, at a time when every national newspaper in the country was commenting on it and writing leading articles about the issue, I was ruled out of order for mentioning the case because the matter was before the Court of Appeal and then before the House of Lords. I submitted a long point of order to Mr. Speaker.
At times during the Gouriet case, when the Attorney-General had to face encroachment on the privilege of the House by the courts, the House was prevented from discussing an urgent matter of public importance, as many of us saw the case. It is fair to say that in the judgment on the thalidomide case—The Sunday Times case—Lord Justice Scarman in the Court of Appeal ventured to say—I suppose that technically it was a breach of privilege—that he felt that not only the courts but Parliament should tighten up their sub judice rules as they were completely out of phase. He said that something should be done about them.
I hope that the Privileges Committee—I am glad that the Chairman is in the Chamber—takes a wide view of his remit rather than the narrow and what I might call Shawcross view.
There is another matter that we have to take into account when we send these issues to the Privileges Committee. There are some lawyers on the Committee. When such a case arises the position of the lawyer is a difficult one. It is a position that is not absolutely straightforward. The lawyer has an allegiance both to the High Court of Justice and to Parliament. Once again, I make the appeal that when those on the Privileges Committee approach the matter they do so rigorously and on every occasion as


Members of the House and not as members of the High Court of Justice. When my hon. Friend the Member for Watford (Mr. Tuck) made his interjection I had the feeling—I may have been wrong—that he was speaking as much as a lawyer as a Member of this place. I accept that I may be absolutely wrong.
It has been said at various times that we must get the matter cleared up so that we may know the legal position. The truth that we must face is that in terms of how the public would understand the legal position on these issues there is not and never can be a legal position. We want to defend our privileges to the utmost, and I am sure that the House wants to defend its privileges to the utmost. The situation is not static. It is one that will be continuous and dynamic. Any attempt that we might make to clear up the matter would introduce the danger of eroding our privileges in favour of those of the courts.
I am proud of being a Member of this place with the right to use my privilege. I agree with the right hon. Member for Down, South when he said that there is no point in having privilege if we do not use it. On the other hand, if I happened to take Lord Denning's place as Master of the Rolls—I suspect that I never shall—I shall be equally keen on defending the privileges of the courts. The House will recall that Lord Denning, unsuccessfully as it turned out, attempted to tell the Attorney-General that he was answerable in his discretion to the Appeal Court and not merely to Parliament.
What worries me is that many of the statements which have been made by Members of the House over the last 10 days appear to have come from those who put their membership of and respect for the courts of justice before their respect for Parliament.

Mr. Percy Grieve: The whole point is that the privileges of the courts are not for the benefit of the courts, but to enable courts to do justice. Similarly, the privileges of Parliament are to enable Members of Parliament to do their duty as Members of Parliament. To emphasise these as one right against another is to mislead the public, who are listening, as to the respective merits of the two cases.

Mr. Price: I do not think that if the hon. and learned Member for Solihull (Mr. Grieve) had studied "Erskine May" with the minute attention that I have, really for the first time, over the last 10 days, he could possibly say that the privileges of the courts and of the House were not in conflict. As I understand it, not being a lawyer, we base our privilege on the fact that there is a law and custom of Parliament—Lex et Consuetudo Parliamenti. The courts have always tried to say that Lex et Consuetudo Parliamenti is part of the common law of Britain. We have always asserted from our point that it is not—what it is a law which is special to us and special to Parliament. In that situation, it is absolutely reasonable to expect Parliament to clash with the courts just as it has clashed with the monarch and other great institutions in Britain in the past.
The truth is that our sub judice rule has been changed in the past and is a developing rule. When the Conservative Government decided to bring the whole gamut of industrial relations into the ambit of the courts, it was immediately clear that, if they did that, they would gag Parliament to a totally unacceptable extent. Therefore, in 1972 the House, at the instance of the noble lord, Lord Carr, brought forward a motion to amend the sub judice rule so that, not only on the National Industrial Relations Court, but on both civil and criminal matters, Mr. Speaker could use his discretion to allow discussion to go on. From that point of view, I think that Members of Parliament must assume that, until the Chair intervenes, the Chair is using its discretion. Our sub judice rule is not an absolute rule. It is a rule within the discretion of Mr. Speaker, and he exercised it quite recently in the case of a constituent of my hon. Friend the Member for Sheffield, Heeley (Mr. Hooley) arising out of the Grunwick issue.
I think that those who expect the Committee of Privileges to come out with some kind of cut-and-dried rule on which, with a few hours' debate, we can vote and get clarity for the future may be expecting too much. I think that those privileges for which we have fought for many years have been worth fighting for and that, as a House, whatever the Committee of Privileges eventually reports, we would be foolish to throw them away lightly.

5.45 p.m.

Mr. Nicholas Fairbairn: I am obliged to the hon. Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Price) for emphasising so consistently the concept of privilege and of absolute privilege. Absolute privilege is given only to the High Court of Parliament and to the courts of law. The conjoinder of that privilege is that it is exercised with absolute responsibility and that it is exercised alone by and is granted alone to those in the courts who, first and foremost, are the servants of justice and to those in Parliament who, first and foremost, are the servants of the Crown and of Parliament. It must be exercised with absolute responsibility.
It is perhaps because the word "absolute" is given that it is assumed that it is some form of anarchistic rule which enables all bounds of behaviour and all concepts to be cast aside and gives to the Member who has absolute privilege, be it in this High Court or in any other court, some kind of immunity from responsibility for his behaviour and utterances. But that is not so. It is the absolute reverse. It imposes upon a Member the absolute duty of responsibility for his utterances.
There would be nothing easier than for a member of the legal profession to use his absolute privilege to defame another member of the legal profession or another member of the public in the exercise of his forensic practice. But that would not be tolerated by the court, and the high standards of the profession would prevent it.
The House must also have its high standards and ensure that, under the cloak of what is called absolute privilege—as far as I can understand from the Gang of Four, it means absolute anarchy; the absolute right to undermine any rule and to do any mischief if they consider that it serves their purpose—Parliament is protected against those who use that great privilege merely to do mischief to the very rights which that privilege guarantees.
I greatly regret the absence not only of the Attorney-General, but of the Lord Advocate. As Members of the House will appreciate, and certainly as you, Mr. Deputy Speaker, appreciate, in recent times there have been different decisions

by the courts in Scotland about the rights of the media and of newspapers and newspaper editors. Certainly the name of the late Lord Justice General Clyde still stirs in the hearts of all news editors and newspaper editors the fear that they might be in contempt of court.
I think it very likely that the courts in Scotland will take a much stricter view of the effect of a publication by a newspaper or the media of a matter which had been raised in Parliament which had been deliberately forbidden by a court. For instance, if a court in Scotland said that the name of a witness was not to be revealed and, in order to defy that court, for whatever motive, a Member of the House were to utter it and a newspaper were then to publish it, as the law of Scotland stands I can say with certainty that there would be no defence for that editor if he were charged with contempt of court. He would have no defence whatever in the law of Scotland, whatever the law of England may be, and my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Wimbledon (Sir M. Havers) will know what that is. There may be a very different situation in Scotland. Therefore, I think that it is unfortunate that the interests of the law of Scotland are not represented by the Lord Advocate this afternoon.
In Scotland we have looked at this matter more closely and with more clarity than in England. As has been said—and I think that it was misunderstood—it is important that hon. Members should know that they cannot use absolute privilege in a vacuum. It carries with it absolute responsibility. A breach of that responsibility must be known to constitute a grave contempt of the House and of any other court in whose contempt it is.
It is an important principle, whether in this House or in any other court, that if one has the absolute privilege that we have, with it goes an absolute responsibility not to abuse it. If in this case there has been such an abuse, for any motive, I trust that the Committee will make that plain.

5.51 p.m.

Mr. Robert Kilroy-Silk: I agreed almost entirely with everything that the right hon. Member for Down, South


(Mr. Powell) said. I shall also quote the sentence that he quoted from Mr. Speaker who said:
Our privilege is something that was dearly obtained by our predecessors, but if it is abused it will be endangered."—[Official Report, 21st April 1978; Vol. 948, c. 866.]
It was dearly obtained. As some of my hon. Friends have said, Parliament frequently has been in conflict with the Crown and the courts. The conflict with the courts still continues and will continue. That is part of a live, vital and thriving democracy. As my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Price) said, there has been a recent major constitutional issue between Parliament and the courts. The Court of Appeal asserted that the Attorney-General was responsible to the courts. The Attorney-General forcefully and correctly asserted that he was responsible to Parliament. That was a conflict between Parliament and the courts. Conflicts are a natural feature of our constitutional history. We should not hide them, nor should we assume that there is a settled, establishment ethos to which we all subscribe and with which we all agree.
The rights and privileges that Parliament possesses were won. But they were won as a result of many battles. They were not handed down. Indeed, all the worthwhile rights that any individual has ever possessed are those for which someone had to fight. The worthwhile rights are not those which the individual has been given or has had handed down to him but for which the individual, or Parliament, has had to fight aggressively.
In the course of establishing the privileges that we now have and the freedoms that are extended to individual Members of Parliament, were not many rules broken, many conventions destroyed, many customs overturned? Had they not been, the powers that we possess today would not exist and we should not have a democracy.
It is also true, as Mr. Speaker said on 21st January, that if that privilege is abused it will be endangered. But it is equally right to say that there is no point in having a privilege if it is not used and if it is simply something that adorns constitutional textbooks. If a privilege means anything, it is there to be used by Members of Parliament when they think fit, in the interests of their con-

stituents and in the performance of their duties and functions as Members. If it is not used, it will certainly be endangered. It will be in danger of being fossilised.
I do not agree that the occasion that led to today's proceedings, when I and three of my hon. Friends named a certain gentleman, was an abuse of privilege. It was not an abuse of parliamentary privilege. My hon. Friends and I were entitled—and we properly exercised our entitlement—to say what we said on that occasion. Perhaps some Opposition Members and some of my hon. Friends found it regrettable and distasteful and did not agree with it. But by any stretch of the imagination that cannot be construed as an abuse of parliamentary privilege. That is a matter of taste.
As the right hon. Member for Down, South said, whether it is an abuse, whether it is discreditable or to be regretted, is a subjective matter. Of course it is a matter of judgment. Hon. Members must form their own opinions. It is for them to decide. But it is legitimate to point out that individual hon. Members have to make their own judgments about when to exercise—and I agree it must be responsibly and sensitively—the privileges, freedoms and rights that the House bestowed upon them. My contention is that the events of Thursday 20th April constituted such an occasion.
Many Opposition Members have referred to our motives and intentions. Since the allegations about our motives and intentions, in some quarters, particularly outside the House, have been hysterical and wild, it is not unreasonable for me to indicate what were our motives and intentions. Our intention was to draw attention to what we believe to be the widely discredited Official Secrets Act and the deplorable inability of my Government to introduce legislation, as they promised in their October 1974 manifesto, to repeal Section 2 of that Act. It was also our intention—and this is a part of our function—to draw the attention of the House and that of the wider public to certain proceedings which we believed were bringing the law into contempt. Many hon. Members might not share our belief, and I accept that. But it is our belief which was and is sincerely held. It is our belief that the proceedings that are now before


certain courts are bringing the law into contempt and are making a farce of it.
I shall not trespass upon your ruling, Mr. Speaker. The reasons for our belief are that a certain gentleman, appearing in a certain court, it is said, should not have been named. When you were not in the Chair, Mr. Speaker, reference was made to the sub judice rule. I shall not take issue with that now, but some hon. Members have asserted that there was an order of the court. That is a matter of dispute between the sides and I shall not take, that further. The gentleman in question appeared in open court. His identity was not considered to be sufficiently sensitive or secretive—

Mr. Speaker: Order. I think that the hon. Member is starting to discuss the case without mentioning it. We have been having a good debate. It was good when I was in the Chair. I hope that we can discuss whether the issue goes to the Committee of Privileges without arguing what is being argued before the courts.

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: May I talk of the hypothetical case of an individual who might have appeared in court and the court had asked that he should not be named? Since he did appear in court one could assume that his identity was not sufficiently sensitive or secret to prevent appearing in court or to suggest that the court should sit in camera.
This morning I spoke to the Royal Signals Institute. I was told that not only are all the people working in a particular organisation listed in its house journal but so are their promotions, postings, hobbies and addresses. That house journal is distributed to every member of that association. It is freely available. If that is so, I cannot understand how I and my hon. Friends could have caused this major constitutional crisis and debate today. That same person is named in every single document issued by the old boys' association—which goes all the way round the world. Any spy worth his salt could get a copy of it.
In those kind of circumstances, therefore, I contend that Parliament should not stand idly by while a Minister, who is not here today, who is not properly answerable to Parliament for his actions, and whom we cannot adequately ques-

tion, nevertheless is a party to and is taking certain proceedings that we are not allowed to discuss. We believe that his actions are in the best traditions of a Whitehall farce, and that we therefore have a duty to bring them to the attention of Parliament and to debate them, as we are tonight.
Very well, Mr. Speaker, we broke the rule—

Mr. Dennis Skinner: Which rule?

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: The rule that the Opposition say we broke. If they wish to suggest that we have broken the rule, then let us accept that. I wish to submit, Mr. Speaker, though you have not yet allowed me to make my case, that there was no such rule, or that at least there was doubt about it. I believe that we would have been failing in our duty on the occasion in question if we had not done what we did. That was a proper and legitimate use of the privilege of which the right hon. Member for Down, South so eloquently spoke. That privilege is one of the reasons that we are here. I submit, too, that this is a matter of great national importance and that it demands debate and discussion. I cannot accept, as my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West cannot, that on all occasions the courts should in effect arrogate to themselves the power to determine what Parliament may or may not discuss. In effect, that is what we in this High Court of Parliament are being asked to accept. If you like, Mr. Speaker—and I say this without any intention of disrespect—we are being told in a hypothetical instance by a magistrates' court what we in this House may or may not debate or decide.
All we did was to mention a name. It is absurd to suggest, as Conservative Members have suggested, that in doing that we were undermining a court or its jurisdiction or the result of a case. In no way did we discuss the merits of the prosecution or defence cases, or any other matter that was before the court. We mentioned only the name. Contrary to what the Conservatives alleged while you were not here, Mr. Speaker, we have not told the enemies of this country something they did not already know.

Mr. Skinner: Who is the enemy?

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: That is the problem. I understand that they are all around us. I should be the first to condemn anyone who gave such information to our enemies, whoever those enemies might be.
There are occasions—and my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West has made this submission to you in the past, Mr. Speaker—where the sub judice rule stifled discussion and debate in Parliament. In this case this issue transcended the confines of the court. It required attention to be drawn to it and it required to be debated.
On Thursday my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister talked about leaks from the Ministry of Defence. Had there been a briefing on that occasion, everything would have been all right. As it was, civil servants were involved and there was therefore a leak. If those responsible are apprehended presumably they will be subject to all the paraphernalia of the Official Secrets Acts. They will be brought before the courts. In that case the matters before the courts will include Service men's pay, how far it has or has not fallen behind the pay of civilian occupations, allegations about manpower losses from the Services, and the further leak in The Times today about inadequacies in the equipment of the British Army of the Rhine.
Are we to say, if that happens, that this House cannot debate major issues concerning the effectiveness of our fighting forces, that we cannot talk about Service pay or the loss of manpower? The Conservatives would be in a state of apoplexy if that were suggested. They would say that this was a matter of great national importance that required to be debated in this House. Incidentally, I do not know what my right hon. Friend the Prime Minister is doing in attempting to find these people. He should have been publishing the information in the first place so that the House could properly debate these matters.
The rights and privileges which membership of this House bestows upon us must be exercised with discretion and judgment. I believe that that was how we exercised it and I believe that we were right.
I turn now to the motion that was tabled by the hon. and learned Member for Runcorn (Mr. Carlisle). It comes

under the umbrella that covers all the things that will be going to the Committee of Privileges. I am at a loss to understand the intent behind that motion. It is fair to point out that five of its six sponsors are lawyers, and perhaps they see their duty as being to a different court from the High Court of Parliament. Perhaps, bearing in mind the way that the Criminal Law Bill timetable was carved up to suit the convenience of the lawyers, they believe that on many occasions they have a higher duty than their duty to this House.
It is also relevant to point out that all the signatories to that motion are Conservatives. In the references to the Gang of Four, in what had been an arcane and relaxed philosophical discussion, there suddenly emerged these allegations about national security. Clearly the whole motive behind that motion, which it is suggested should be part of the motion submitted to the Committee of Privileges, is one of quick and cheap party advantage. Those behind the motion have been driven on by the more extreme and hysterically wild statements of the Tory Press. They see the chance of making party capital.

Mr. Carlisle: The hon. Member asked what my motive was in putting down the motion. I thought that I had made it clear that my motive was that I considered that the hon. Gentleman had behaved disgracefully. Having listened to him for the last 20 minutes, I have no reason to change my mind one iota.

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: That is another party point. For that reason, and in view of the hon. and learned Gentleman's comments, I cannot see the value of referring this matter to the Committee of Privileges. Surely that is not the place for the party battle to be fought out. I cannot believe that it would be conducive to a dispassionate, objective and fair discussion of the conduct of hon. Members in this matter if the hon. and learned Gentleman's motion were to be referred to the Committee in the vindictive atmosphere which it has generated. Incidentally, it embodies many of the expressions that appeared in the Tory Press, which has been most wild and hysterical in this matter. The supporters of the motion were clearly motivated by the politics of the witch hunt.

Mr. Robin F. Cook: Does my hon. Friend not agree that it is precisely the tone of the intervention by the hon. and learned Member for Runcorn (Mr. Carlisle) and the references to the Gang of Four in the preceding speeches from the Opposition Benches which illustrate the grave danger of this House seeking to determine when the use of privilege is use or abuse of that privilege? In these circumstances, the matter inevitably becomes one of partisan relationships. At present every hon. Member enjoys absolute privilege, but the danger is that that will become a privilege which can be relied upon only by those who can command a majority in the House.

Mr. Kilroy-Silk: I accept what my hon. Friend said.
There is another aspect to this matter. You will remember, Mr. Speaker, that you told the House that you were in ignorance of what was happening in the courts when three hon. Gentlemen and an hon. Lady made certain comments during supplementary questions to the Business Statement last Thursday week. The first of those hon. Members—my hon. Friend the Member for Barking (Miss Richardson)—as the right hon. Member for Down, South said, was not brought to book. Had she been so, I can say quite clearly that my hon. Friends and I would have accepted unequivocally the ruling of Mr. Speaker. But he did not intervene and, as he has rightly pointed out, nor did any other hon. Gentleman. It does not become the right hon. Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym) in opening the debate to say that they did not know about this. That is just not true. There were cries of that lovely Tory word "disgraceful" when my hon. Friend first mentioned the unmentionable name. There were the usual discreet tut-tuts, all of which were heard quite clearly and distinctly on the radio that evening.
Obviously, hon. Members opposite knew very well what was going on. They had the weapon in their hands to stop it then and there, had they wished to do so. But they chose not to. It was only when the hysteria generated by the newspapers on Saturday made them feel that suddenly they were on to a good thing, that there was party capital to be made

here, that they could talk about traitors and treason, that this whole thing became quite a different issue—and a party issue at that.
That is regrettable because it means that we cannot discuss the matter in the important and dispassionate way that it demands. It also prejudices very seriously the discussions of the Committee of Privileges.
I turn to the Committee of Privileges itself. If the conduct of myself and my hon. Friends is to be referred to that Committee, I submit that its proceedings, should be open. I have nothing to hide or to fear from open meetings of the Committee. These should be open to the Press and to the public so that there can be full public discussion and debate on the whole matter.
It is somewhat ironic that this should have arisen out of the secrets trial that is being held in the open. Yet this case will be held in secret. If we are to avoid the impression to those outside, and indeed to myself and my hon. Friends, that we are not being asked to go before a kangaroo court or something reminiscent of a Star Chamber, I suggest the meetings should be open.
An element of hypocrisy has bedeviled this issue. My hon. Friend the Member for Sowerby (Mr. Madden) requested an emergency debate on Press freedom recently. Nothing more illustrates the double standards and hypocrisy of the Press than the way in which it has treated this matter. The Daily Mail, The Sun, the Daily Express, the Daily Mirror, The Guardian and The Times all named the particular individual on Friday. Then on the Saturday when they had had time to think about it, and they found that they had got their knickers in a twist slightly, The Sun, the Daily Mail and the Daily Express ran highly censorious, hysterical, wild and critical admonitions of myself and my hon. Friends. I accept that. It is perfectly legitimate.
However Press freedom has two sides. Just as the freedom of the Press means that newspapers can print what happens in Parliament, it also means that they can exercise their own discretion and judgment and decide not to publish anything that they believe to be in bad taste, regrettable, unfortunate or even, perhaps, aiding and giving sustenance to our


enemies. Yet the papers used that name in the name of Press freedom one day and condemned myself and my hon. Friends the next.
One important thing has come out of this affair. My hon. Friends and I had, as our main objection, not the particular colonel, but the Government's refusal to legislate, as they promised this Session, to repeal Section 2 of the Official Secrets Act and replace it with a freedom of information act. If we have succeeded in drawing attention to that, the whole exercise has been worth while.

6.15 p.m.

Mr. Robin Maxwell-Hyslop: An element of the confusion which seems to have arisen concerning the events of Thursday 20th April is due to the fact that the word "privilege" is used in two completely different contexts. It has been used to refer to the privilege of Parliament, the House of Commons and the House of Lords on the one hand, and to the absolute privilege and qualified privilege in the context of civil law on defamation on the other. Because the same word has been used in totally different contexts, inferences have been drawn which are absurd and misleading rather than informative.
If we start from the accepted fact of doctrine that this House cannot, by auto-resolution, extend its own privilege, it becomes clear that this reference to the Committee of Privileges cannot have as its result the extension of the privilege of the House of Commons to an ambit in which it did not previously exist.
It is possible by legislation, by enactment, by statute law to extend the privilege of Parliament as a whole or of either or both of its Houses, but it does not lie within the competence and the power of the Committee of Privileges or the House of Commons to extend its privilege where it does not currently exist. On that we should be quite clear.
Therefore, the task falling to the Committee of Privileges, if this motion is carried, will be one of judging rules and judging conduct, but not one of deciding whether the privilege of this House should be declared to extend where Mr. Speaker has—in my opinion—so very rightly declared that it does not extend.
The only reason why anyone could have believed that the privilege of this

House extended into a territory where it clearly does not extend is that there has been the confusion to which I have already alluded. The fact that a newspaper or an individual outside this House can, in certain circumstances, plead absolute privilege or qualified privilege as a defence to a civil action for libel or slander has nothing whatever to do with the privilege of Parliament. It has a lot to do with the law of defamation, but nothing to do with the privilege of Parliament.
Similarly, if somebody commits treason within the House that does not lose the characteristic of treason because the same act is committed by repetition outside the House. What privilege does is something else. It was summed up rather well in the ninth article of the Bill of Rights. What privilege says about this House is not that there is absolute licence to say anything within its precincts—in the Chamber or in a Committee Room during a formal sitting; what privilege says is that a court exterior to this House shall not inquire into such acts within the Chamber. But it does not say that there is a licence to say anything within the Chamber. Indeed, the reverse is sometimes the case.
We are bound by our rules not to refer in debate to happenings in Committees of this House upstairs which have not yet reported to this House and to happenings in open sittings of such Committees, yet it is no breach of privilege for a newspaper to report such happenings.
This works both ways. There are breaches of our own rules in the House, which the House has customarily punished, which would not necessarily be offences if committed outside the House. It has been held that the privilege of the House does not extend to an hon. Member who has made a speech, under privilege, in this Chamber and has defamed a person in the course of doing so when that Member has sought to extend the frontier of the privilege of the House by reading his own speech outside the House. It has been held that that does not extend the umbrella of parliamentary privilege outside the House.
Certainly there are ambits in which the privilege of the House extends outside the House—and necessarily so. The House has always claimed, as part of its


privilege, the right to protect in a certain way witnesses who have given evidence before a Select Committee of the House or at the Bar of the House.
Many of us will recall a recent case in which an employee of the National Coal Board gave evidence to a Select Committee of the House and subsequently claimed that he had lost his job through victimisation by his employer because of the evidence that he had given to the Select Committee. The reason why the House did not punish that man's employer for breach of privilege was not that it decided that privilege did not exist in that context; it was that it decided that the complainant had not established the facts that he alleged, namely, that he had been punished for evidence given before a Select Committee. That is an example of the privilege of the House necessarily extending outside its precincts.
There are other occasions when the analogy is more that the precincts of the House extend themselves, as when, elsewhere in the United Kingdom, a Select Committee duly appointed by resolution of the House takes evidence in formal session. In that event, the privilege of the House extends outside the Palace of Westminster. The privilege of the House extends outside the Palace of Westminster when the Serjeant at Arms is sent with Mr. Speaker's warrant—or, in olden days, bearing the Mace to expose it as the authority of the House—to bring before the House a person whom the House has commanded to be brought. However, these are exceptions to the normal rule of the privilege of the House being something spacially, as well as contextually, limited to the House.
It has also been held that to report accurately outside the House one speech, without reporting the rest of the debate—not in terms of parliamentary privilege, but in terms of that entirely different kind of privilege, which is a defence to an action for defamation—is not a good defence.
The old law and constitution of Parliament have been mentioned. It is true not only that we cannot extend our privilege but that in certain contexts that privilege has atrophied. The House once claimed that to arrest a Member's servant

outside the House under conditions in which it would be a breach of privilege to arrest a Member constituted a breach of privilege and warranted punishment in the form of being summoned here and admonished by the House.
However, as to the motion before us, there is no real decision that the Committee of Privileges has to take on the question whether the privilege of the House has in any way been infringed by or is concerned with the events of Thursday 20th April. Clearly, it has not.
The Committee of Privileges must consider what goes with the privilege. The self-discipline of Parliament goes with the privilege of Parliament. It is an absurd view that such self-discipline ought not to act unless and until it is imposed by Mr. Speaker. That proposition was advanced earlier. It means that unless Mr. Speaker possesses precognition, no one is capable of saying any thing in the House that the House would wish to prevent or punish until it has been said and Mr. Speaker has intervened and declared that it should not have been said. That is a manifestly absurd proposition. After all, Mr. Speaker is a servant of the House and not its master. The rules of which Mr. Speaker has the duty to remind Members are not Mr. Speaker's rules; they are the rules of the House of Commons itself.
The question that often comes before the Committee of Privileges is not, therefore, whether there has been a breach of privilege, as such, but whether an hon. Member or a group of Members have so conducted themselves—this has not always to do with spoken words, but can have to do with actions taken—as to constitute in some cases an abuse of the privilege of the House, and in this case an abuse of the privilege not to have a court outside the House inquiring into words said within the House.
On other occasions the conduct that the Committee of Privileges is charged with assessing and on which it is charged with commenting and making a recommendation to the House can vary. There could be such conduct as deliberately delaying a Division so that the normal procedures of the House are frustrated. One such instance will be within the memory of many Members. That is the function of


the Committee of Privileges. When performing that function, it is not in any sense ruling or declaring; it is only advising the House which sets it up in the first place.
The question has been asked whether we mean to change any of our practices. That falls more naturally within the remit of the Committee on Procedure than within the remit of the Committee of Privileges.

Mr. Raphael Tuck: I was not suggesting that the question of enlarging the rules about mentioning anybody's name should be sent to the Committee of Privileges. I was merely suggesting that it should be considered because it would have obviated the difficulties in which the House is now placed.

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: If we can agree that something should be considered, that does not necessarily mean that the most appropriate place for it to be considered is the Committee of Privileges rather than the Committee on Procedure.
There have been occasions when the House has wanted to debate a matter in private and has wished, at the same time, no record of the debate to be made. It has done this either by the technical device of spying strangers or by a concrete resolution of the House to go into secret session.
Whether such a device should be used when the House wishes to discuss a matter that is not of national security but is sub judice—although the one does not exclude the other—is surely a question that properly falls within the province not of the Committee of Privileges—it has nothing to do with privilege—but of the Committee on Procedure—it has everything to do with procedure.
That is why, out of the events that have led to the debate, we should disentangle the strands of judging the conduct of some of our colleagues, if we believe that this task needs to be performed, and of recommending any changes in procedure which may be necessary so that the House can legitimately debate matters that it is proper for it to debate but publication of which outside the House would frustrate another purpose, such as the high purpose of justice, so as to bring about an apparent collision of objective between Parliament and the

courts, both of whom have functions pro bono publico to perform.
I recommend the Leader of the House to refer to the Committee of Privileges the question of the conduct of the hon. Members who, on Thursday 20th April, mentioned the name of the officer—an action which some claim was in circumstances that were sub judice and others claim was not—and, quite separately, that there should be referred to the Committee on Procedure, as it has nothing to do with privilege, the question whether the House should devise means whereby both Parliament and the courts can, separately, perform functions, for example in the context of the sub judice rule, in such a manner that they do not impair each other's functions. This is an entirely necessary and sensible course of action.
As a sub-heading comes any problem that may arise within the context of instantaneous transmission. There is a possible solution to this problem. In the past hon. Members have been entitled to spy strangers. I have done so once myself, with the result that the Question is put, without debate, that strangers should be ordered to withdraw.
There is no reason why the Committee on Procedure should not recommend and the House adopt a Standing Order that an hon. Member may rise on a point of order and say that he wishes to raise a matter that is sub judice, of which he has given Mr. Speaker private notice—so that he knows what the hon. Member is talking about—and, if Mr. Speaker considers that it is a proper matter to put to the House, he may order that the Strangers Gallery and the Press Gallery should be cleared and that instantaneous transmission should be terminated. There is no reason why such a procedure should not be adopted for a sub judice matter, in the same way as it is adopted in a security matter when there is consensus in the House or when a majority of the House believes that such action is desirable.

Mrs. Audrey Wise: Does the hon. Gentleman not recognise the irony implicit in his remarks, which seem to lead to the suggestion that in future we should make a practice of having secret sessions, as this debate arises out of the need to have our proceedings reported?

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: I do not recognise any irony at all. It is clear that some hon. Members feel that circumstances arise in which there are matters that they wish to discuss in the House, but that its rules do not allow to be raised.
There is no irony in suggesting means by which such desires can be accommodated without frustrating another process of the State pro bono publico, namely, the administration of justice in the courts. It would be ironic if the House were unable or unwilling to face and deal sensibly with such an obvious problem in a number of obvious ways, one of which I have spelled out. There is no irony in that.
It may be that if the Leader of the House agrees with the analysis that I have offered of the functions of the Committee of Privileges of judging conduct and the Committee on Procedure of regulating this aspect of our affairs, he will think it right to ask leave to withdraw this motion and table two separate motions that would give effect to the suggestions that I have thought it right and helpful to make to the House.

6.38 p.m.

Miss Jo Richardson: Until the end of the speech of the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) I thought that he had not read the motion. He was not talking to the motion, but seemed, rather, to have put my colleagues and myself in the dock. As far as I could follow his tortuous, not to say hybrid, argument, that seemed to be its whole purport.
I welcome the debate and the opportunity to explore the situation that has arisen since 20th April and that is exercising the House. I have listened with great care to what hon. Members on both sides of the House have said and I must tell those who have been critical that I am entirely unrepentant of having taken the action that I did on 20th April.
I gather that the action taken by my hon. Friends and myself has been repeated by the counsel for the Attorney-General, who named the same gentleman in court today. While speaking about the Attorney-General, I welcome the appearance on the Government Front Bench of a representative from the Law Officers' Department. We have commented before that there has been no one

from the Department to listen to this important debate.
The action of my hon. Friends and myself was not taken in an irresponsible sense of mischief as some newspapers have suggested. Right hon. and hon. Members in this debate have implied that all four of us have been abusing the privilege given to Members of Parliament in this House. Others have already made the point that it was a hard-won privilege—a privilege that exists for each of us to use as we, in our judgment, feel necessary.
I decided to use that privilege because I felt that it was in the public interest to do so following the action of the Director of Public Prosecutions. That is what originally caused me to do what I did. I also wanted to try to expose the difficulties of journalists in reporting details of court cases which are of wide interest to the public as well as to this House. We know that two newspapers and the National Union of Journalists are now in court in defence of the rights of newspapers to report facts to the public.
Our decision to broadcast parliamentary proceedings gives weight to this point. The media, by feeding in voices, can now add a bit of colur and bite to descriptions of what happens in this place. Part of our proceedings are broadcast live, and I understand that that is now happening to this debate.
Reference has been made to the difficulties that would arise if we ever thought of censoring the live part of the broadcasts. It has also been suggested that somebody would have to have his hand on the buzzer. I believe that in some live broadcasts—I am not referring to broadcasts of our proceedings—it is the practice for the broadcast to go out 10 seconds behind the actual spoken words. I understand that this enables the person in charge of the broadcast to have an opportunity to cut out a doubtful reference. I suppose that is done in order to try to cut out obscene language, which may be embarrassing if heard over the radio. That criterion does not apply to the House of Commons. We surely do not want to see censorship creeping in here.
It is obvious that live broadcasting will create new situations. The sooner we sit down and realise that we are into


a new ball game the better. I believe that we must now consider the matter on the basis of the question whether it is right that the people who sit in the Public Gallery should hear things which the wider public, when the broadcasting is edited, may not hear. That is one of the problems that we must consider.
Another reason why I took the action that I did on 20th April was that I was very keen to draw attention to what I believed was an absurd situation in the courts. If there is a contempt case in a court which hon. Members feel is deeply wrong and absurd, are we not to use our hard-won privilege to expose the absurdity of the situation? I am not suggesting that we should discuss the case itself. I do not believe that a court trying a contempt case would be particularly prejudiced one way or the other by what was said in the Press or in this House.
I am not a lawyer, but I understand that contempt cases are tried by judges rather than juries. In 1960, in the Court of Appeal, in the case of R. v. Duffey, Lord Chief Justice Parker commented that where experienced judges alone decided the issue they could be relied on to be completely uninfluenced by Press reports. That being so, it would seem to me that there is no reason why a Member of Parliament should not comment on a matter without influencing the court in any way.
There is one aspect of the sub judice matter that mystifies me. One of my hon. Friends reminded me that over a period of two years when the Clay Cross councillors were going through the courts, week after week and month after month, the subject of Clay Cross was often mentioned in this House by hon. Members on both sides. On those occasions there was no question of the sub judice rule being invoked. Since I am not a parliamentary expert, I wish somebody would explain how some cases may be commented upon whereas others may not.
I understand that in 1972 there was a resolution of the House that led Mr. Speaker to admit reference in debate to matters awaiting adjudication in court—matters of national importance. I believe—you will correct me if I am wrong, Mr. Speaker—that in 1976 you confirmed this suggestion when you spoke of the deliber-

ate relaxation of the rule in matters of public policy.
The cases that gave rise to this debate this evening are certainly matters of public policy, but the principal reason why I took my decision was that I felt deeply that something should be done to draw the attention of the House and the public to the difficulties facing everybody in this country as a result of the continuing existence of our present Official Secrets Act, and the severe restrictions that it places on the freedom of information. That is a matter of public policy and one on which one was entitled to take action.
A reason for withholding the name of a witness in a case could be to protect him against enemy action. However, this could introduce into a trial an air of unnecessary secrecy which would be prejudicial to the defendants. If emotive phrases such as "national security" are used by the prosecution in the context of cases under the Official Secrets Act, they have a sinister air in the minds of the public in respect of the defendant.
The phrase "national security" was frequently used in the long arguments in the House about the Agee-Hosenball case—the case that started the whole saga that led to this debate. Justice was not done in that case, because the Secret Service cloak prevented a revelation of the charges against those concerned, and the Government found themselves in a ludicrous position. That is shown by the fact that one of the two gentlemen concerned, Mr. Mark Hosenball, who was finally deported and returned to the United States, in a matter of weeks became an accredited Press representative to the White House.
This House should be concerned with the law and should ensure that justice is done to investigative journalists whose only crime in this instance is to try to dig up material showing the stupidities of the Official Secrets Act. I remind the House and particularly my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House that in our October 1974 manifesto Labour promised to replace the Official Secrets Acts. We are not nitwits. We all accept that genuine defence matters and matters of national security must have a cloak of secrecy around them. There is no question about that. But we must not


lose sight of the rights of the individual citizen to question and to know what the Government are doing.
We have been promised a White Paper on official secrets in a few weeks' time. From what we have heard, it will do little to help the situation. Unless we can expose the difficulties in which every citizen remains while we have the present Acts, we shall go on for years with the minimum revision of Official Secrets Acts, which will endanger every individual. We understand that all that will happen is a revision of Section 2. That is not enough. We should also have a revision certainly of Section 1 and possibly many other sections. Let us have a genuine debate about the whole matter while we are about it.
What the Government apparently intend to do in no way carries out the spirit and the message of our election manifesto commitment. Incidentally, I am glad to hear that the national executive of the Labour Party is producing far-reaching proposals for a freedom of information Act. Perhaps the next Labour Government can be persuaded to implement them.
This country has had enough of unnecessary secrecy, secrecy which frightens citizens into a blind acceptance of what "authority" wants them to know. A real democracy involves challenge to that authority. Full freedom of information, which would have made unnecessary this debate and the actions of my hon. Friends and myself, is fundamental to healthy and open government.

6.53 p.m.

Mr. John Mendelson: The hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) did not respond to an offer of an example of irony from my hon. Friend the Member for Coventry, South-West (Mrs. Wise). I make another suggestion to him, which perhaps will receive a better reception.
To some extent this debate is connected with the recent decision to broadcast the proceedings of the House. It does not centre solely upon that decision, but it is not wholly unconnected with it. Does it occur as a possible and acceptable irony to the hon. Gentleman that for the first time since the war, a few weeks after we decided to broadcast the proceedings

of the House, an hon. Member in all seriousness made the suggestion that we should go into secret session?

Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop: I suggested that we should go into secret session to enable us to discuss matters that we should not have been able to discuss even before broadcasting came, so there is no irony in it whatever. This would still have been the case in such circumstances, even without the advent of broadcasting.

Mr. Mendelson: There is no doubt about it. The House knows what the hon. Gentleman had in mind. None the less, even though it may not appeal to the hon. Gentleman, I think it worth while putting it on record that those many right hon. and hon. Members who foresaw a number of problems that might arise if it were once decided to broadcast the proceedings of the House, by television or by news radio and sound broad-casting, also foresaw that those problems would not be only of a technical character.
When he thinks the matter over at home, the hon. Gentleman may accept at least a smile of irony at the suggestion that it is at this early stage that the suggestion of a secret session has been seriously made. I hope that it will not be followed up by my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, in spite of the blandishments in the hon. Gentleman's speech. I know that my right hon. Friend is not a friend of secret sessions. I hope that the emergency that produced secret sessions in the middle of the war wilt not occur over the next hundred years, so that a future generation deals with this proposal.
This may be a day to say, when we are reminded that there are so many big problems of enemies at various doors, that we must take into account a number of matters when we discuss our proceedings and the decisions that we must make in this House. But although it will be agreed that broadcasting is an element in this debate, it is not the main element.
I am glad that, as is characteristic of him, the hon. and learned Member for Runcorn (Mr. Carlisle) is still with us after making his speech. He is not in the habit of quite a number of others of producing a propaganda blast, making accusations against other hon. Members


and then absenting himself for the rest of the debate, as the hon. and learned Member for Kinross and West Perthshire (Mr. Fairbairn) has done. If he makes accusations against hon. Members the hon. and learned Gentleman should be here to face their replies and the replies of others, and not run away after he has made the attack.
The hon. and learned Member for Runcorn, as always, is taking his stand after making his speech and is ready to reply to responses to it, so I begin with him, because in many ways his was perhaps the key contribution from one side of the argument. I should like the hon. and learned Gentleman to consider, first, that this is a rather peculiar debate in its origins. I completely reject any suggestion that if the motion were carried by the House there would be any instruction to the Committee of Privileges from the House that four Members, or any Member, should be indicted and any offence that they are alleged to have committed should be considered by the Committee. There is no such motion before the House. This point has not yet been made in the debate, and it is one of the main reasons why I was anxious to take part, even at this late stage.
As you well know, Mr. Speaker, and as the House knows, if any suggestion is ever made that Members or a Member should be referred before the Committee of Privileges for an offence they are alleged to have committed, what is needed is a motion. Before that motion can be moved, Mr. Speaker, you must rule that a prima facie case exists. You have not so ruled. You have not been asked to rule, and therefore you could not rule. We do not know whether you would have done so if you had been asked.
Therefore, the situation is quite different from the normal cases of motions to refer the conduct of Members to the Committee of Privileges, and so the hon. and learned Gentleman is quite wrong if he says that his main purpose is that this should be done by the Committee. He and his colleagues put down an Early-Day Motion. There are hundreds of Early-Day Motions on the Order Paper. But an Early-Day Motion does not have the force and power of an instruction to the Committee. Such a reference can come about only by resolution of the House. That is the first point that I wish to put

on record, and I think that it is relevant to the debate.
What we have is a motion. It is only because it is worded as it is that I, and I dare say many other hon. Members and right hon. Members, may be prepared to vote for it. The purpose is that all the matters involved in the problems that have been raised may be considered by an appropriate Committee of the House, to see where we stand, to make a general survey, to consider the principles and all the possibilities and consequences that might arise from changes such as the broadcasting of the House, and attitudes recently adopted in the courts which as a consequence might be introduced into the work of the House.
I say in passing that over the years I have been one of those—I am by no means alone—who have argued that if the House is to reform its procedure, it must do so by its own decisions, in order to serve the public better, not because of the introduction of mechanical instruments from outside. We have so far rejected, and I shall certainly continue to reject, the introduction of the television cameras into the Chamber, because we do not want the House to be reformed by outside cameras. If we need reform—and clearly the House must from time to time reform its procedure—it must be done by us in response to needs that arise because we want to serve the public better.
That brings me to the definition of privilege that has been used a good deal this afternoon. Of course, we are all agreed that it is a most unfortunate term. The hon. and learned Member for Solihull (Mr. Grieve), briefly intervened in the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Lewisham, West (Mr. Price) to tell him very briefly, before also disappearing, that of course the courts were there only to serve the system. He did not make it clear to me what we are here for.
I have always understood that it was common ground that the term "privilege" is a misnomer. Privilege means that Members of Parliament are given such conditions of work as enable them to do their job for their constituents without their security being endangered. I am glad to see that I carry the Father of the House, my right hon. Friend the Member for Vauxhall (Mr. Strauss) with me in my remarks. In years gone by, in


its most primitive form, privilege meant that if a Member wanted to raise a matter affecting the interests of some of his constituents and there were powerful people in the constituency who might attack him, he would be protected and enabled to do his job properly without fear or favour.
To try to erect a contrast between the function of a court and the function of Parliament is absurd. It belittles the equally important functions of Parliament and the House of Commons. The creative tension between a system of justice that is divided into the courts and the High Court of Parliament is bound to be continuous. There can be no escaping that. My right hon. Friend the Leader of the House will agree that it need not be unhealthy, provided that all of those involved take their stand.
One of the things that has disturbed me today—I say this without rancour to hon. and learned Members—is that so many members of the legal profession have to some extent belittled the function of Parliament as compared with the function of the courts. That is a dangerous tendency which we must not allow to creep into our debates. The consequence of our debate ought to be that the Committee of Privileges must approach the problems that we refer to it in the broadest possible way. If my right hon. Friend is prepared to give that assurance, I shall be prepared to support the motion.
It ought to be clearly understood that it is completely unworthy of hon. Members to make accusations of a rather personal nature, either in the Press or in this House, against my hon. Friends. The House knows that I would say the same thing if all four Members sat on the Opposition side of the House, or belonged to any third or fourth party. It was quite clear—I was in my seat on the afternoon in question—that all the hon. Members involved were doing their job in the public interest. They were raising a matter on grounds of public policy. No other motivation was possible. That being so, they must be the judges of what they think right and of the methods they use.
We should allow no one, either you, Mr. Speaker, or any Committee of the House, to prevent what we say being published. To do that would be to embark

on the road to censorship. I do not believe that any hon. Members wish to censor the House of Commons. But the danger exists. It is easy to fall into the trap of saying that some hon. Members are more responsible than others. It is well known that some of the greatest parliamentary heroes in the history of this House were regarded as the most irresponsible at the time when they were doing their most famous parliamentary deeds. I need not rehearse their names or labour the point in an assembly as well-informed as this House.
Some of the most important points in today's debate were raised by my hon. Friend the Member for York (Mr. Lyon) and the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell). The Opposition Front Bench and other right hon. and hon. Members ought to join with us in saying that the only proper instruction to the Committee of Privileges is that it should consider this problem in the broadest possible sense. There is no mandate to indict anyone. The Committee should give us an outline of the way in which it thinks we can best organise these matters in the future.

7.4 p.m.

Mr. Foot: May I intervene with one or two sentences? I am sure that everyone who has listened to the debate will agree that it is bound to be extremely helpful to the Committee of Privileges when it meets—from the speech of the right hon. Member for Down, South (Mr. Powell) to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone (Mr. Mendelson) who has just spoken. I am not even excluding the speech of the right hon. Member for Cambridgeshire (Mr. Pym). Those speeches will have helped shape the way in which the Committee of Privileges can approach this matter.
I am glad to give my hon. Friend the Member for Penistone the assurance for which he has asked. Of course, I believe that the motion is framed so that all these matters can be considered in the widest context. The motion might be regarded as an Aaron's Rod of a motion, eating up all the other snakes in the other motions. I am not casting any aspersions on those other motions.

Mrs. Wise: Will my right hon. Friend also assure the House that there is no


implication that any changes are necessary? It may well be that the Committee of Privileges decides that the situation is perfectly adequate and that what we need to do is defend it.

Mr. Foot: The Committee of Privileges will be free to come to any conclusions that it wishes and to make recommendations to the House. It is the House that decides the matter eventually. The Committee of Privileges, like every other Committee of this House, is subordinate to the House. In some respects, it may be that when the House of Commons or the Committee of Privileges looks at what has happened it will see the reasons for some of the privileges that we have and why they should be sustained.
I believe that there are other matters that have arisen that need to be looked at and that the Committee of Privileges is the proper body to which these matters should be sent. As in all such cases, this House will retain the final authority to decide the matter when it comes back to it. I am sure that when the issue does come back we shall need to debate it again. On that basis, I hope that the House will be prepared to accept the motion.

Question put and agreed to.

Ordered,
That the matter of publication of the Proceedings of the House, other than by order of the House, in so far as the Privileges of this House are concerned and the matter of the application of the sub judice rule during Business Questions on Thursday 20th April be referred to the Committee of Privileges.

EUROPEAN COMMUNITY (ENLARGEMENT)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Jim Marshall.]

[Commission documents: Nos. S/227/76, Com. (78) 120 Final and the Explanatory Memorandum 7th March 1978.]

7.6 p.m.

The Minister of State, Foreign and Commonwealth Office (Mr. Frank Judd): The Government welcome this opportunity, provided by the Opposition, to debate the question of the enlargement of the European Community. We are convinced that the issue is of immense political significance and that it is right that the House should be able to monitor progress and to put its views on record. This evening's debate, although somewhat truncated, will prove to be part of an ongoing process of evaluation and comment by the House and its Committees.
In our view Ministers must be at least as accountable on this far-reaching issue as they are on Community affairs of considerably less importance. The timing of the debate has two or three snags. First, the so-called fresco prepared by the Commission was issued only in the past few days and there has not been much time to absorb it. To facilitate the debate I have taken exceptional steps to make available to the House the only text of this fresco that the Government have received, although it is an advance copy and not the definitive text.
Secondly, the Commission's case on Portugal, which will be highly relevant, is expected very soon. It is not yet available. Thirdly, the Secretary of State deeply regrets that his presence at the Council of Foreign Ministers in Brussels today—where Ministers will have had their first look, as a Council, at the scenarios set out in the fresco proposed by the Commission—makes it impossible for him to be present in the House, although I believe that he is trying to do everything possible to get back before the debate concludes.
It was because the Government had been anxious that the House should have at its disposal as much information as possible on this key topic that we provided, in March, a lengthy memorandum covering the various aspects of enlargement. It seemed to us that this would


be a better basis for debate than the only other document so far available directly related to the subject, namely, document S/227/76, on Greek accession. We are determined to go on making available as much background information as possible on this and on all other EEC matters.
At the start of our debate there is one point that I should like to make as clear as possible. Although the Government's general approach to enlargement is on record—I shall restate it this evening—in following this through the Government wish to take fully into account the views of Parliament. Therefore, from the Government's stand point, the most valuable part of the debate will be the opportunity it gives us to listen to Parliament. But it will also have considerable value, in my view, if it serves to stimulate at least some public awareness of the issue and of the importance as undoubtedly the biggest single issue now facing the Community.
The Government unequivocally support the concept of enlargement. This stand is based first and foremost on our strong political commitment to the support of democracy in Greece, Portugal and Spain. We believe that Community membership would, for these countries, be an important factor in stabilising and protecting their democracy. By encouraging their European vocation we would be stimulating the still fairly early growth of democratic tendencies. At the very least, we would be denying the weapon of having been rejected to those who might want to exploit it.
What is more, political and economic factors cannot be separated. The relation between the commitment to democracy and a sound economic base is extremely close. In helping the applicant countries to enjoy a share of the economic benefits of membership of the Common Market, the Community will be helping stability, which will be essential soil for democracy to grow in.
The Government believe it an overriding consideration to assist the consolidation of democracy in Southern Europe, for its advent in such a short space of time is surely one of the most encouraging developments in world politics of recent years. Even if it were not already expressly provided in the Treaty of Rome that each

European country has the right to seek membership of the Community, there can be no question about the need to bring the applicant countries back into the main stream of Western democratic development.
The political imperative is most clear when we consider the alternative. A rebuff to these tender democracies could cause incalculable harm not only domestically and for bilateral relations but to Western interests generally.
Linked with this view of the political imperative is the Government's attitude towards the timetable for negotiations, and the need for enlargement to 12 and not to 10 or to 11. The political imperative is urgent and applies equally to all three countries. Greece is first in the queue. Therefore it is only natural that Greece should be ahead in the negotiations. The Government are glad that substantive negotiations with the Greeks began in February and are committed to working with our partners towards breaking the back of the negotiations by the end of this year. But the urgency applies to all three, and all must be given equal priority. Delays could lead to frustration and to harming the very thing that the Community wishes to foster. The Government have therefore pressed consistently hard for greater urgency in preparation of the Commission's opinion on Portugal which, as I have reminded the House, is now imminent, and the opinion on Spain, which is due early next year.
It is particularly important to proceed swiftly with the Portuguese and Spanish applications so that there can be no question of pulling up the drawbridge after Greece enters. It is a cardinal point of the Government's thinking that enlargement must be to 12 and not to 10 or to 11. It would be disastrous for the applicants and for the Community itself were the Portuguese or Spanish negotiations to be delayed or stopped because the Community has begun to have doubts about the enlargement as the wider implications became apparent. While all the Nine have expressed general support for enlargement, it is for this reason that the Government consider that there must be a clear understanding in the Community that we are all aiming for a Community of 12.
It is clear that political arguments and pressures are the main driving force behind


the wish to enlarge to 12, but we must not allow this political commitment to obscure other considerations. There must be no shirking the fact that there will be a price to pay. The Community in general, and Britain in particular, must face up to some very thorny problems to which solutions will simply have to be found.
Permit me, Mr. Deputy Speaker, at this point to give a word of background about the three applicants. Greece was the first country to enter into an association agreement with the Community. This was signed in 1961. Although the agreement was in a sense put into cold storage during the period when the colonels were in power in Athens, it has, none the less, meant that Greece is already well on the way to harmonising her trade and other arrangements with those of the Community. This will mean that the adjustment which Greece will have to undergo on joining will be less extensive that it would otherwise have been.
Portugal has an economy whose industry is traditionally based on steel and textiles. Her future plans for diversification, based, as they are, on petrochemicals, motor vehicles and shipbuilding, will not diminish some of the current problems faced by the Community as a whole. As an EFTA country, she has a free trade agreement with the Community. There is already free trade between Portugal and the EEC for much of our own trade, although restraint arrangements are still maintained in certain particularly sensitive sectors, such as textiles.
Spain has had a trade agreement with the Community since 1970. Negotiations are at present under way to broaden the scope of that agreement. If agreement can be reached, this should serve as a useful stepping stone for Spain's entry to the EEC.
Details of the likely implications of enlargement are set out in the Government's memorandum and in the Commission fresco to which I have referred. There is no need for me to go over all this ground again, but I should like to draw attention to particular points that Britain and the Community will have to face up to.
Budgetary costs have been very much present in the Government's mind. As I

fear is perhaps too often overlooked. Britain is already a net contributor to the Community budget in no modest sense—£377 million last year—and we obviously have to look very carefully at expenditure which will increase the United Kingdom's net contribution.
In so far as the Government have been able to estimate budgetary costs to the United Kingdom, it would seem that the total would be between £90 million and £115 million a year on the basis of present policies. This is certainly not a meagre amount, but it has to be weighed in the political balance. I must stress that the estimate is extremely tentative and that in any case present policies are bound to change under the impact of enlargement.

Mr. Donald Anderson: Would it not also be proper to say that in addition to that budgetary cost there would be additional capital cost in respect of Portugal, so that the total bill for this country would be substantially higher?

Mr. Judd: I was hoping to deal with that point, if I might, in a moment.
In addition, it is impossible to estimate the amount of special financial aid that the Community may give. The Government note that in the fresco the Commission seems to envisage special assistance for Portugal alone of the three, in the form of expenditure through the International Monetary Fund and the European Investment Bank. We think that the emphasis here should be on using existing institutions and that, particularly in the short term, member States of the Community should continue to play their part in supporting Portugal's balance of payments through the IMF, and that development of investment should be facilitated particularly by loans from the EIB.

Mr. Jeremy Thorpe: Why does the Minister say that? Am I not right that all the IMF is prepared to do is to give a loan of up to $50 million, with disciplines attached? If that is successful, there will be a European line of credit, but there is no question of the IMF backing it up to the extent that Portugal requires.

Mr. Judd: That is a very important point. There can always be discussion about the extent to which we should be supporting Portugal, and there can be a


debate among IMF members on this point, but our view remains unchanged that support should go through the IMF.

Mr. Thorpe: This is a very important point. It is all very well for the Minister to say what he would like the IMF to do. My point is that the IMF is prepared only to extend a line of credit to the tune of $50 million, plus certain disciplines about cutting back public expenditure, bank rate and so forth, so that it is no good the Minister saying that he would like to see it. We must deal with reality. What he has said, therefore, is unwittingly misleading the House, because the IMF is not prepared to go beyond a very limited amount of loan. Therefore we have to consider that the rest of the Community will have to chip in with very much more.

Mr. Judd: I note what the right hon. Gentleman has said, and he can no doubt pursue it in his contribution. I remain committed to the point that we believe that, while there can be a real debate about the level of support that should be available through the IMF, and indeed the conditions on which it should be available, basically that support should go through wider international institutions of that kind, rather than through the Community.
We should also bear in mind the obligation that we would anyway feel to help the democratic Government in Portugal, whether or not that country was a candidate for membership of the Community. The Community has already since 1974 decided to extend EIB loans to Portugal worth about £275 million. Bilaterally, we in Britain have allocated aid to Portugal worth over £5 million, as well as contributing $20 million to the multilateral balance of payments facility organised by the IMF. In addition, of course, we help Portugal considerably through the World Bank.
As to the implications for industry, we must face up to the fact that the applicants are low-cost producers in areas of industry which are currently acutely sensitive within the Community—for example, textiles, steel and shipbuilding.
Negotiations will be very difficult in these areas and special arrangements will need to be made for the transitional

periods. These periods will, of course, take us up to the mid-1980's and beyond. It is impossible to foresee what will be the state of the world economy by then.
The Government have noted with interest the suggestion in the fresco that common disciplines in these sensitive areas of industry should be concerted with the applicants. We see advantage in some concertation, but we shall obviously want to look very carefully at any suggestions for establishing new Community-wide policies for industry or in other sectors to take account of enlargement. A plus point to bear in mind in our case is that the United Kingdom has a favourable trade balance with all three applicants, and most United Kingdom exports are industrial products.
As for agriculture, there is a danger that the inclusion of three new countries growing Mediterranean produce may lead to surpluses in Mediterranean products to add to the already existing surpluses in northern products. The Government are watching this and trying to see that in current discussions on Mediterranean agriculture within the existing Community the disturbing mistakes made over northern products are not repeated. Other northern States share, of course, our interest in holding down the costs of Mediterranean agriculture. Fishing will also present complications to be overcome, although a lot will depend upon what emerges as the common fisheries policy of the Nine.
A point I wish to stress in relation to regional policy is that enlargement will inevitably add another layer to the already existing problem of increasing divergence within the Community. The Community must in any case face up to the fact that much more must be done on regional and social policy to remedy this. Enlargement makes it all the more vital for the Community to get to grips with this problem.
It is difficult to predict the effects of enlargement on free movement of labour Much will depend on levels of demand and economic activity in the existing member States and the applicant countries. The Government welcome the reference in the fresco to the likelihood of transitional arrangements. However, there was no flood of workers from the poor Italian South to this country when the


United Kingdom joined the Community. There was, and will quite likely still be, a greater tendency for these workers to travel to Germany and France.

Mr. Sydney Bidwell: Is my hon. Friend aware that in recent times the TUC has asked the Department of Employment—and it has agreed—to cut back on work vouchers as they apply to workers from these States? That does not lead me on to saying that during a long transitional period we cannot accommodate them. But it does lead me to ask whether the CBI and TUC are being fully consulted about the whole question of the movement of unskilled labour from these other countries into Britain in future.

Mr. Judd: I can assure my hon. Friend that just as we shall want to listen attentively to the views expressed in the House, so we shall also want to take into account the views of other important sectors in social, industrial and economic life.
Some of the implications of enlargement for external economic relations will need close attention, particularly relations with developing countries not least in the Mediterranean. This was brought home forcibly to me during a recent visit to Algeria and Tunisia. It certainly came across to me that there already, without enlargement, there is a good deal of anxiety about the consequences of the Community's present consideration of proposals for Mediterranean agriculture. The Community's partners in the overall Mediterranean approach are likely to feel quite a draught from enlargement, and the Community must work hard to find a solution to the problem.

Mr. John Lee (Birmingham, Handsworth): rose—

Mr. Judd: Time is short and I think I should proceed. I am sure that my hon. Friend will have an opportunity of contributing during the debate.
Trade relations are not likely to be greatly affected, but we cannot rule out that aid generally may be. As far as the United Kingdom is concerned, enlargement should make little difference because aid funds are allocated quite separately from EEC funds. Other countries, however, who do not attribute

EEC aid to the national aid programme may find that there is a smaller share of funds left for EEC aid after the new commitments arising from enlargement have been met. We must not be complacent about this danger of possible diversion of resources from the Third World to Southern Europe. But we must all recognise that in rejecting—in my view rightly—the selfish goal of being an exclusive "rich man's club", the Community may face a greater dichotomy between the calls for internal and external expenditure.
What is now recognised by us all as beyond doubt is that the gigantic economic problems facing all of us are far, far bigger than the Community itself. An enlarged Community—although undoubtedly still more significant—will be no more able to overcome these problems on its own than is the present Community of Nine. What will matter is the line which the Community as a whole will collectively take in wider economic negotiations within the industrialised world and between the industrialised world and the developing world. I fervently hope that Britain will play its part in keeping an indispensable outward-looking perspective of the policies of the Community.
Enlargement will clearly add to the political strength of the Community, but here, too, there are important problems to be solved. One that particularly concerns the United Kingdom, of course, is the problem with Spain over Gibraltar. The Government are firmly opposed to setting conditions on Spanish membership. Nevertheless, as I have already emphasised to the House, it would be unthinkable for the present restrictions to continue after Spanish entry We believe that it must prove possible to resolve this question of restrictions as between partners and friends.
A second problem concerns Greece and Turkey. As I know from my own visit last autumn to Turkey, the Turks are deeply concerned about the possibility that the Community will take Greece's side in Eastern Mediterranean questions. Some way must be found of reassuring Turkey. Effective political links between the Community and Turkey will be more important than ever after Greek accession.
A third more general problem concerns the political relationship between the


Community and all those Western European democratic countries which are not part of the EEC. The level of political co-operation within the EEC is impressive. We shall want to strengthen it in the context of enlargement. But this must not be at the expense of political co-operation between the EEC collectively, or individual member States of the EEC, on the one hand, and their other friends in Western Europe on the other.
In an interesting ministerial discussion at the Council of Europe last week, it became clear that with the advent of enlargement the role of the Council of Europe—bringing, as it does, the whole of democratic Western Europe together—would become more significant than it has perhaps been for some time. As for the institutional implications of enlargement, I believe two main elements can be distinguished. First, the Treaties will need to be amended to give the new member States fair and proportionate representation in the various Community institutions. Secondly, there is the general problem of ensuring that the Community machinery can work effectively, without undue bureaucracy or expense, once the number of its members is increased.
The first aspect is fairly straightforward, although it would be realistic to reckon with some pretty lengthy discussions on the numbers game. It will also provide us all with an opportunity to review the size of the Commission. There are strong arguments which need to be carefully weighed for suggesting that that body should, after enlargement, be confined to 12 members with only one commissioner from each member State. There will also be other practical problems such as how to avoid the danger of hung judgments in the Court of Justice if, after enlargement, it has an equal number of judges with one from each member State; or simply, how delegations will physically be fitted into the space available together with all the necessary extra facilities for interpretation.
On the second aspect, the British Government cannot agree with those who see the answer in rigid application of procedural devices such as the increased use of majority voting. The Government are absolutely committed to the present principle of consensus, with retention of the right of veto.
It cannot be underlined too heavily that the Community's institutions must not be seen as an end in themselves. They are merely the vehicle of European development and collaboration at any given time, and development and collaboration are not ends in themselves either. Their real worth can be measured only by the degree to which they improve the lives of ordinary men, women and children in all the member countries, not least our own.
Improvements in development and collaboration will be pursued after enlargement, but I suggest that we shall all have to be more selective than in the past. The institutions will have to work flexibly to assist this process, responding to political pressures and possibilities. It would be getting the whole thing the wrong way round to imagine that they could ever produce the desired results on their own.
There are plenty of means open to us for keeping the machinery efficient and flexible, provided we steer our course by realities rather than abstract principles. It is already the Council's practice to seek to solve problems by consensus, with States who find themselves in the clear minority informally deferring to the majority view on less important questions.
During the time of the British presidency last year steps were taken to improve the efficiency of the work of the Council. These have proved successful with the Council of Permanent Representatives playing a key role in preparing the ground for full Council meetings in such a way that Ministers can concentrate on what really matters—as in the CAP.
The Commission—which, as I have just suggested, might be reconstituted on a more compact basis after enlargement—already carries a considerable share of the Community's routine management tasks within the lines already agreed by Ministers, and we can look at proposals for setting up similar arrangements in further specific areas.
But in saying this I should stress the basic point—to which we are deeply committed—that political decisions and policy making must be seen as the responsibility of Ministers—Ministers who must remain firmly accountable to their own domestic Parliaments. Any arrangements will be most useful if used flexibly


and with sensitivity to differing circumstances. The opposite approach of tailoring a procedural straitjacket, within which even the Nine would feel themselves cramped, seems to us frankly on practical grounds to be a non-starter.
I now come to the question of transition periods. The Government welcome the Commission's recognition that there may be a need for flexibility here, and a case for not necessarily following the classical pattern. The Government agree with the suggested minimum and maximum recommended in the fresco of five years and 10 years respectively. As to the Commission's idea of two stages, we shall have to study this carefully, at least as far as Greece and Spain are concerned.
As far as the fresco as a whole is concerned, the Government welcome the tabling of a document which will facilitate consideration in the round of the implications of enlargement. It should help the Community avoid the pitfalls of, on the one hand, a piecemeal approach, and on the other hand, trying to bunch the negotiations into one. I hope that the fresco will lead to decisions that will facilitate and speed up the individual negotiations, especially a decision of principle that all concerned are aiming at a Community of Twelve.
Having said this, I hasten to add that the Government have various reservations on the suggested approach. The sections on economic and monetary union in particular appear to be putting the cart before the horse. I have already mentioned our reservations about more majority voting. There are others. Various points also need clarifying—for example, the suggestion for pre-accession sectoral measures, and the question of languages.
The Secretary of State has registered these points in Brussels today, I believe, and he has stressed that these are our preliminary views. The Government views on the fresco are frankly still crystallising and that is why we shall take particular note of the views of hon. Members in this debate. In the meantime, I have noted the strength of feeling in the House that we should have constructive interim policies towards the applicant States.
Before closing, I must deal with the view expressed by some that the United Kingdom is supporting enlargement out

of a wish to weaken the Community because it sees widening as a way of avoiding deepening. The Government reject that criticism. But it will plainly be impossible to deepen across the whole range of Community activity after increasing to twelve. The Community must be prepared to be more selective about areas in which it seeks harmonisation. Of course, enlargement from nine to 12 will change the Community, just as enlargement from six to nine changed it. The Community enlarged to nine because of its limitations, especially political limitations. It must have been recognised then that the future shape of the Community would be affected. Similarly now, political arguments and pressures are the stimulus for a further adjustment of horizons.
What is clear is that the question of enlargement is about far more than the narrowly defined economic and financial niceties of the Treaty of Rome. It is about the political future of Western Europe and, as the Declaration on Democracy adopted at the most recent European Council re-emphasised, it is about the cause of democracy itself. It is closely related to the Government's objective of a Community of sovereign nations co-operating together for the common good. There will be costs. But costs will be worth paying. Freedom is indivisible. History will judge the Community not so much by its wealth or administrative structure as by whether it enhanced the dignity and self-respect of individual men and women within it and beyond it. That is every bit as much the test by which to assess the value of the chapter on enlargement which we are about to write as any other aspects of Community life.

7.36 p.m.

Mr. Douglas Hurd (Mid-Oxon): The House is grateful to the Minister for covering the ground so succinctly. He was right to be apologetic about the nature of the debate this evening. After all, we are debating the most important project before the Community. It affects millions of people. It affects the future shape and prospects of democracy in Europe. It affects three countries with which for centuries we have been concerned in the closest possible way. Our trade, military strategy and political emotions have all been deeply involved in


Greece, Spain and Portugal from time to time, and the future of these countries is still clearly vital to us. Therefore, it is not satisfactory to have a tiny mouse of a debate squeezed between 7 o'clock and 10 o'clock this evening. Frankly, that is not what we had in mind when we made available a Supply Day for this purpose. I hope that when the Minister winds up the debate he can give a clear undertaking that this debate, on a vital matter, will be resumed within Government time, with proper space available, before we rise for the Summer Recess.

Mr. Judd: I should like to give an immediate assurance on that matter. I well understand the sense of disappointment in the House, and I shall personally bring that disappointment to the attention of my right hon. Friend the Leader of the House, in the hope that more time will be found before too long.

Mr. Hurd: We should like to push for a slightly more forthcoming phrase. I am sure that the Minister will do his best, but we shall press the Leader of the House, on the right occasion, for a definite undertaking that he will provide time for a further and proper debate.
The Opposition strongly support the enlargement of the Community to include Greece, Spain and Portugal. Five years ago all three countries were under authoritarian regimes of the Right and there was a clear risk, when those regimes collapsed, that a Left-wing authoritarian regime in each case might be the natural heir, because of the way in which the countries had been governed. If anyone had said in this House five years ago that all three of these countries would dispose of their authoritarian regimes almost without bloodshed, and then fend off in free elections the inevitable Communist threat and elect of their own free will moderate Governments, any such Member would have been dismissed as a hopeless optimist. Yet that is what has happened.
There are major economic problems remaining. In the case of Portugal, as the right hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe) has already emphasised, those problems are frightening. Nevertheless, the achievement of all three countries has been remarkable, and it is very much in the interests of Britain that they should

continue to succeed. Now they have applied to us to join the Community to buttress their achievements.
That is a complication, but it is also a compliment. They want to join. It is sometimes useful for us in the House to see the Community as others see it from outside. They want to join the Community because they see it as the partnership of European democracies on which the future of Europe essentially depends. They regard it as imperfect, but a great deal better than anything that has gone before it. They want to be a part of it. That seems to be a powerful political reason.
In economic terms they see—perhaps more clearly than we in the House—the growing power and importance of the Community in establishing trading relations with the outside world. Rather than national Governments, it is now the Community that uses its influence to negotiate conditions in which our industries trade. The applicant countries recognise that power and prefer to see it used on their behalf once they are in the Community than to feel the brunt of it as outsiders. Anyone who has heard the leaders of the applicant countries press their case for full membership as soon as possible cannot fail to be impressed by that case.
Many hon. Members will have arguments, causes or interests with which they are especially concerned. Some are con cerned with the increased budgetary cost, with which the Minister dealt. Some are concerned with greater access being given into the hands of willing British consumers of such things as Portuguese textiles. Others will be more impressed by better prospects for our exports, especially into the large and still rather highly protected Spanish market.
These are all complicated and legitimate considerations that have to be balanced. It seems to me that they must take their place behind the main argument. No one can guarantee that membership of the European Communities will secure for ever the political stability of Greece, Spain and Portugal. However, we can be sure that if we deny them their applications it will be a cruel and perhaps mortal blow to their hopes and to what they have been trying to do.
Some support enlargement—the Minister was rightly sensitive about this—for


reasons that I consider to be misguided. They believe that enlargement will throw up so many problems and complications that it will check, perhaps for ever, the progress of the Community and perhaps force it back into a simpler and much more primitive form. They believe that the whole house of cards is so flimsy that three more cards could bring it down.

Mr. Neil Marten: That is right.

Mr. Hurd: My hon. Friend is naturally attracted by that argument. There was a hint of it, of course, in the Prime Minister's famous letter to Mr. Hayward, which caused so much trouble and damage. According to the argument, we would be left with a simple political alliance of sovereign States and there would be no attempt to arrive at common policies in trade, commerce and economics. That is a possible outcome, but I am sure that it would be much against Britain's interests.
If we were to abandon efforts to arrive at common policies where there are clearly common needs, we would go back into bad old ways. I do not doubt that there would be much more protectionism and much more unemployment. If we took that course we could so easily become engaged in, or fall through inadvertence and incident by incident into, little farm wars, fish wars, steel wars and then energy wars with our partners. It is impossible to imagine that the over-arching political alliance could continue for long if that happened.
It is essential that we preserve what we have achieved in the Community and make further progress. The Minister is right to say that we cannot progress everywhere all the time, but we should continue to make progress where we can and where it is sensible to do so. That is the wish of those who are applying to join. We may find before long that they are pressing us to make speed. The idea that we are proposing to admit slow and reluctant partners is the opposite of the truth. In surmounting the complications that exist the Community and the British Government will need to show a good deal more energy and imagination than has been shown hitherto.
I turn now to the specifics. The whole question of enlargement raises questions in relation to the institutions. The only

one to which I shall refer—I mention it briefly—is that of majority voting. The Community is sluggish. The Council of Ministers is sluggish in taking decisions. It is slow, for example, in approving mandates for important negotiations with other countries. Other countries become, reasonably, exasperated. It is slow, as we have seen this month, in fixing farm prices year by year. Farmers are understandably exasperated. That is the price that we pay for insisting on the veto. It has to be accepted that that is the price we pay. I doubt whether it is possible or wise to attack head on the existence of the veto, or even to try to whittle it away by fixing in advance formal categories of decision to which it does not apply.
The document that we are discussing may be nudging us into a cul-de-sac on that point. If the Community is to work, it seems essential that there should be a greater readiness to accept a consensus, which means in effect, accepting the President's summing up at the end of a full discussion. I think that the Minister has not served in a British Cabinet—certainly I have not done so. I believe that this is how, essentially, the British Cabinet works. There is discussion, and at a certain time the Prime Minister, with his eye on the clock, sums up. There is then a short silence, in which members of the Cabinet may object, although they usually do not do so.
A recent President of the Council of Ministers—not the Foreign Secretary—told me that in his experience that system was beginning to evolve inside the Council of Ministers. I notice that the Foreign Secretary made a similar point in his evidence to the House of Lords' Scrutiny Committee. It is happening very slowly, but it is a desirable development. It will be essential as a habit of working once we get to a Community of Twelve.
We are talking about the discipline of working together and the discipline which that imposes upon national Governments trying to argue a case which for them is relatively secondary.

Mr. Lee: Am I to understand from what the hon. Gentleman is trying to say in a roundabout way that he would forgo the right of veto? Is he asking the Government more or less to give an undertaking that there are no circumstances in which it would be operated,


bearing in mind that ominously enough it has never formally been used?

Mr. Hurd: The hon. Gentleman completely misunderstands what I have said. I have said that we cannot attack the power of veto head-on, or whittle it away by formal changes, and that member States should pay more attention to the need for agreement. The veto is like a pistol that a man carries in his holster. Everyone knows that it is there and no one will succeed in taking it away from him. What matters is how often that man draws his gun, or threatens to draw it. It is in that sense that I think that the Council of Ministers has gone astray. There is a need to look again at the discipline of working together.
I turn next to agriculture. It should be emphasised, as some discussion seems to go astray on the matter, that we cannot have special provision for the new members after the transitional arrangements are over. Any agricultural arrangements for Mediterranean products must apply to the French and Italian farmers as well as to the farmers of Spain, Greece and Portugal when the transition is over.
It is natural that Mediterranean States, whether they are in the Community now or applying to join, should feel that the CAP is biased at present towards Northern products, and mainly dairy products. However, it would be a great mistake for them to try to push the Community into repeating the mistakes which it made over dairy products and to produce again the combination of surpluses and high prices that does so much damage to the Community and from which the Commission is trying to rescue us, with scant recognition in some parts of the House.
That is what the Commission's proposals in the current price review mean. The Commission is trying to rescue us from the damage that has been done by the initial setting up of that policy. Fortunately many of the Mediterranean products are unsuitable for intervention. We cannot store them, and that is a blessing.
It is a much better use of the Community's resources to concentrate on guidance rather than guarantee. That is an argument which is often advanced by my hon. Friends in the European Parliament. It makes more sense to improve a port,

to improve a railhead and to better a marketing co-operative than to finance or dump the surpluses created through artificially high prices.
I should like to mention two specific countries and hope that the Minister, in reply, will tell us more about them. The right hon. Member for Devon, North rightly lost no time in introducing the problem of Portugal, with an economy that is so fragile that it is obviously on the brink, and has been for some time.
Portugal is engaged in tense and difficult negotiations with the IMF. I think that we need more clarity about this matter. If the IMF facility, whatever it is, is agreed that is, as it were, a key that should, and the Portuguese understand will, unlock further help, particularly from European sources. It is not enough for the Minister of State to rehearse what has been done by the EIB and other institutions in the past. In view of the crucial importance of Portugal, we need to know more about the plans that the Community or Her Majesty's Government have for moving into this room, once the IMF has unlocked the door.
Mention was made of Turkey. I think that it would be wrong not to include some discussion of Turkey in a debate on the enlargement of the Community as at present envisaged. Turkey, like Greece, has an association agreement with the Community which looks forward to full membership. The situation here should not be allowed to drift. The future of Turkey is of great importance to the West. The problems facing Turkey are so serious that they would not be solved by full membership of the EEC if she were to decide that was what she wanted. The GDP per head of the Turkish people is only 60 per cent. of that of Portugal—and we are worried about Portugal—and Turkey's population is four times the size. I fear that membership of the EEC by Turkey might overburden the EEC without solving the problems with which the Turks are wrestling.
It seems that a wider approach is needed—an approach that must include the Americans as well as ourselves. It is fortunate that both Greece and Turkey now have wise and experienced leaders. Perhaps there is a chance here—I should like the Minister to say something about this matter in winding up—a chance that


may not last very long, for the Community and the Americans to show a bit of imagination and to work out a joint political and economic approach, including an updated agreement between the EEC and Turkey. That would show the Turks that the West regards them, in practice, as well as in words, as essential and valued friends and allies. We should consider the problem and future of Turkey in a more energetic and sympathetic way than we have up to now in the Community.
Finally, enlargement is a mixture of problems and opportunities. It is easy to harp on the problems, and it is right to do so as long as we remember that in the end the opportunities are the more important. It is a test of statesmanship, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Hexham (Mr. Rippon) said in a speech at Strasbourg not long ago. It is not really open to us to say "We are sorry, but we are so fussed and bothered with our own problems in the Community that we have to slam the door in your faces, and damn the consequences for yourselves." We have to be a little brave and imaginative over this matter and show some of the courage and imagination that these countries have shown in tackling their own problems. With that courage and imagination there is a good chance that in, say, 10 years we shall find ourselves with three new members who will add substantial strength to our Community.

7.55 p.m.

Mr. Donald Anderson: A Back Bencher is able to take a somewhat less "responsible" attitude to the question of enlargement than the two Front Benchers who have spoken.
I shall try to deal with two essential issues—the effect of enlargement on the nature of the EEC and on the policies of Her Majesty's Government towards the EEC.
In my view, the starting point is that, unless fundamental changes are made within the decision-making process the EEC, the cohesion of the Community will inevitably be weakened by enlargement. We should not delude ourselves the Community of Twelve will be fundamentally different from the Community of Nine. It will be qualitatively different. In the enlargement from Six to Nine the

additional three countries were roughly similar in economic progress. However, there is a fundamental difference between the Nine and the proposed additional three because of the geographic, economic and political divergences which will be imported into the EEC. An already cumbersome decision-making process, such as we have seen of late in the debates about farm prices and fisheries policy, will be made even more cumbersome because of the new divergences in the attempt to find some degree of cohesion within the new Community of Twelve. It is clear beyond doubt that the energies of the Community over the next three or four years will be almost totally absorbed in the attempt to enlarge the Community to twelve.
Economic and Monetary Union and the vision of the founding fathers of an "ever-closer union" will be forced to an ever-distant future. That will be highly acceptable and welcome to many hon. Members and will come to pass unless there is a major feat of imagination on the part of existing members and a major transfer of resources towards the poor applicant States. That will require a measure of political will which I doubt whether anyone in the House seriously expects from existing members over the next few years, particularly in respect of the Regional Fund and the Social Fund.
It will be even more difficult to obtain decisions from the Community which will come into being than from the existing Community unless there are changes, such as those adumbrated within the Commission document, of majority voting and agreement possibly to change the Luxembourg compromise. The habit of consensus, mentioned by the hon. Member for Mid-Oxon (Mr. Hurd), is a habit of consensus on relatively secondary matters. It is straining credulity to imagine that this will extend to the fundamental decisions which will face the Community in respect of enlargement.
Another possible change in the structure of the Community is some plan of an inner council on the lines of the Tindemans' report. But that equally, given the present view of the member States, is unrealistic in the situation today—This new change in the structure was, it appears from the weekend Press, discussed in a recent Community report.
Save on secondary issues, can anyone see the political will in the current EEC to make such changes? If there is no such will power, must we resign ourselves to an even more tardy decision-making process within the EEC so that anti-federalists can rejoin, rejoice at the prospect of enlargement?
It is said that the benefits will be political. As the hon. Member for Mid-Oxon said, who would have imagined five years ago that these fledgling democracies would have emerged from their long travail of Right-wing dictatorship to the position that we see today, having survived for some time after free elections? It is put as an investment in democracy.
We must accept that the treaty says that the Community is open to new members. To deny entry to the three applicant States at this late stage would be seen as a snub. There is no going back. We must accept the inevitable political process. One cannot help feeling that to some extent the members of the existing Community have sleep-walked into the present position to the point of no return and that a political decision has been made before the economic bill has been calculated.
Perhaps some of the existing members, having viewed the economic cost to themselves, are now considering that it is better to travel than to arrive. To them the current process of negotiation is, perhaps, preferable to the end of the road—1980 for Greece and 1983 or thereabouts for Spain and Portugal.
The case based on political advantages can be put in question because on the other side of the coin are many likely political disadvantages. I shall instance one or two of them. One is the attitude of the West Germans who are still the paymasters of the Community and who are willing to make sacrifices because of their vision of a European Union. There is a constant tension in the policies of the Federal Republic caused by the pull of their traditional partners in central Europe and the pull to the West.
As the ideal of European Union becomes increasingly incapable of realisation this might lead to a fundamental rethink among West German policy makers of their attitude to the Community. One might envisage, towards

the end of the process of enlargement, a new uncertainty in West German policy towards the Community.
The position of Turkey has already been mentioned by both Front-Bench speakers, particularly in relation to Cyprus. It is a particularly sensitive area because of the Turkish position in NATO. One hopes that the Community will accept that the new initiatives are needed to allay the fears of Turkey following enlargement.
Apart from the danger of Turkey and other areas losing markets, one sees the possibility of a new protectionism arising against the existing suppliers to the Community of Mediterranean produce—Morocco, Cyprus, Maghreb, the Mashraq countries and Israel. I concede that this is a point of detail but it is important and must be dealt with in negotiations.
I turn to the effect on United Kingdom policy towards the Community. Clear economic disadvantages are likely for us, particularly since by 1980 the transition phase for the budgetary arrangement comes to an end. Our contribution to the budget will then be higher than it is now. We are already second in the order of net contributors towards the Community and yet we are towards the bottom in the Community in terms of GDP per head.
A further substantial net increase in the amount spent by the EEC budget on agriculture is likely, to our detriment. As regimes are established for Mediterranean produce there is a real danger that the excesses of the common agricultural produce will be repeated—those of high guarantee prices, surpluses and protectionism. Given the higher proportion of the work forces in the applicant countries engaged in agriculture, one can see serious social dislocation in those countries if there were an attempt by the EEC structurally to drive people from agriculture. There will be a rise of 55 per cent. in the number of people employed on EEC farms as a result of enlargement.

Mr. Nigel Spearing: My hon. Friend suggests that he is not too sure whether it would be good for the EEC for Greece to join. If the EEC is the great international organisation to the benefit of all that he and others believe,


why cannot it assimilate and deal with the problems that he is outlining?

Mr. Anderson: I am outlining the problems. My hon. Friend must wait with expectancy for my conclusions when I shall deal with the matter, having first outlined the difficulties. If my hon. Friend will contain his impatience I shall deal with that problem in my peroration.
Clearly, France and Italy will be on the side of the applicant countries in seeking to have guarantees and preferences for Mediterranean produce, on the lines of those for the temperate foodstuffs which currently benefit the northern members of the EEC. But even the new States will bring a greater element of temperate foodstuffs into the EEC.
Our job is to see that, as far as possible, the EEC realises that excesses of the CAP and takes them into consideration when dealing with any new régime for Mediterranean produce. But this alone might lead to the dashing of the expectations of the applicant countries which have had the EEC sold to them by their Governments as a means of solving their own gross economic problems.
One fears that there could be disillusion within the applicant countries because the present lack of political willpower creates an unwillingness among the present member States to transfer resources to the new countries. The fear is that they will not gain that which they have been led to expect. This disillusion can lead only to a period of increased tension within the EEC and further retard the decision-making process. This disillusion will affect Portugal in particular because it might reject proudly any attempt to impose conditions upon economic aid which might be funnelled to them through the EEC.
As a result of enlargement, instead of being the bottom of the poverty league in the EEC the United Kingdom will be somewhere in the middle. We shall therefore have to reassess our attitudes. We shall need to think again about our present posture, for example, of pressing for increased expenditure on social and regional policies—that is, unless we can envisage altruistic policies on behalf of this Government and a willingness to transfer substantial resources to the new and weaker countries. How realistic is it to expect such altruistic policies?

There is also a danger of a diversion of investment from institutions external to the EEC to the low-labour-most manufacturers in the applicant countries.
I imagine that the Ford decision to invest substantially in Spain in the last few years might have been influenced in part by Spain's access to the wider EEC market. If that were not so, that investment might have gone elsewhere in the EEC. I shall not deal with the particular United Kingdom industries—steel, textiles and footwear—which could be affected by the entry of Portugal. But few of our domestic industries stand to gain much from access to the three countries. I concede that the Spanish market is where the likely gains are greatest yet there is no great demand by United Kingdom industry for enlargement.
I have asked many questions and not given many answers. The conventional wisdom is that enlargement is justified for political reasons and that there are certain economic disadvantages. The budgetary cost to the EEC has been estimated at between £90 million and £115 million, in addition to any further sums which we shall have to pay to Portugal.
Unless we face the need for political decisions on the transfer of resources, and the need for a serious appraisal of changes in the institutional structure of the EEC, there is a real danger that there could be a major weakening of the Community as a result of enlargement. I concede—and I say this in response to my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South—that enlargement is a fact of life. But we must accept it with our eyes open to the real dangers as well as to the possible advantages. A Back Bencher can say certain things about those dangers that Front Benchers dare not say.
I am reminded of the advice given to me once by a wise old counsellor who stated that if one has to do something one should do it as enthusiastically as possible. My hon. Friend the Minister has attempted perhaps for that reason to speak as enthusiastically as possible on the subject of enlargement.

8.11 p.m.

Mr. Jeremy Thorpe: I welcome the debate. The Minister, as a good parliamentarian, assured us, with the modesty that we always expect from


the Front Benches, that the sole object of the exercise, with the exception of a few introductory and explanatory remarks from himself, was to enable the Government to listen to the spirit of the House of Commons on this issue. If that is the Government's object they could hardly have chosen a worse time than to coincide the debate with the very moment when the Council of Ministers is meeting, when it would be impossible to speak to the Foreign Secretary. The Minister is most unlikely to pick up the telephone to tell him that he must get back to the House of Commons because it had taken a very firm view, and that thereafter the Council members should get back round the table to discuss the matter.
There was a case for having the debate before the Council of Ministers met so that the Council could hear what the House said. There was also a case for having the debate afterwards, when we would then have had a full analysis and a proper translation of the proceedings.

Mr. Judd: The Government were at some pains to try to arrange an alternative timetable, but pressure from elsewhere in the House, which we were most anxious to accommodate, led us to pick this time today.

Mr. Thorpe: I thank the Minister for that explanation, but many of us would have been much happier to have met yesterday. That might have made a greater impact on the Government. That would have been better than sitting in the rain, declaring solidarity with other countries with which some of us do not feel quite so solid.
I welcome the fact that three friendly West European countries have returned to democratic forms of Government—two of them after roughly 40 years of dictatorship—and have applied to join as full members. I hope that the House will bear with me if I quote again a short passage which puts into perspective the view of the Commission. These are the remarks of Mr. Ortoli in January 1976 on the Commission's feelings towards the application for membership by Greece. He said
the Commission has been deeply conscious of the obligation that lies on the Community to find a fitting and appropriate response to the Greek request for membership. This request,

coming a few months only after the restoration of democracy in Greece and enjoying the support of almost every shade of Greek political opinion, represents a remarkable affirmation by the Greek people and their leaders of the overriding importance they attach to their country being committed to the cause of European integration. It is clear that the consolidation of Greece's democracy which is a fundamental concern not only of the Greek people but also of the Community and its Member States, is intimately related to the evolution of Greece's relationship with the Community. It is in the light of these considerations that the Commission recommends that a clear affirmative reply be given to the Greek request and that negotiations for Greek accession be opened.
During the Easter Recess I had the privilege of visiting Portugal and Spain—from one of which I had previously been banned and in the other of which I was not particularly popular at an earlier stage. There I was privileged to meet the Minister of State and the Foreign Minister, respectively, who are in charge of their countries' negotiations to join. I say unequivocally that both those countries regard it as no less important than do the Government of Greece that they should join as full members of the Community, and join what they regard as the mainstream of Western Europe.
I am glad that the opinion in regard to Greece, which by implication obtains also in regard to the applications by Spain and Portugal, has ruled out the idea of a pre-accession period. If they are to be full members they should sign the Treaty, ratify it in their Parliaments and become full members subject to derogations of between five and 10 years. This is a political decision by them, just as it is a political decision for the Nine. Mr. Natali said that it was a political "yes" with an economic and institutional "but". But whatever the difficulties, we should remember that they will be greater for the applicants than for us.
The political will for enlargement is there, however, and there is, fortunately, on this occasion no de Gaulle waiting in the wings with a veto to use at the last moment. The Commission was right to point out the impact on the institution—on the European Assembly which will be greatly enlarged, on the Council of Ministers which will likewise grow, on the Commission itself where there is the suggestion that there might be a reduction with each country having only one Commissioner, on the Court of Justice, and on the question of majority voting.
We have gone much further with majority voting. In the fresco of the three applicants there is reference, on page 18, to the Paris Summit of 1974, at which the opinion was expressed that it was necessary, in order to improve the functioning of the Council,
to renounce the practice which consists of making agreement on all questions conditional on the unanimous consent of the Member States".
There is no doubt that this has been pragmatically extended to a political code in which there is far more flexibility. I see nothing wrong in that concept and I hope that it will be extended.
I agree with the hon. Member for Mid-Oxon (Mr. Hurd) that one cannot meet the veto head-on. But I believe that as the Community evolves we must hope for greater flexibility and a greater readiness by members to reach a consensus without necessarily exercising the veto.
The Commission is right to point out that there will be adaptations to the European Investment Bank, the European Coal and Steel Communities, and the Monetary Committee, and to energy, social, regional, agricultural, trade and financial policies.
There is a new development of some significance which is that the applicants have been told in advance to reduce their national aid to those industries which are already in surplus in the Nine. Basically, these will be steel and shipbuilding in Spain, textiles in Greece, and new investment in all three in Portugal. There will, of course, be the problem of Mediterranean agricultural products. The planning of new industry and the phasing out of old industries that are in surplus in both the Nine and, subsequently, the Twelve will produce a formidable task given the background of unemployment of 7½ million people.
In Portugal the unemployment rate is already 14 per cent. The per capita income is $1,650 per annum, compared with Denmark, where it is $7,600. The credit lines from the rest of Europe—I gather that our Government, like the West Germans, have already committed themselves, to a figure—are dependent on the $50 million loan from the IMF and the disciplines which the IMF placed upon the Portuguese economy in terms of bank rate and public expenditure. Those

are disciplines with which Her Majesty's Government are familiar.
If these IMF disciplines are too harsh and if Europe refuses to give any help unless Portgual agrees to abide by them we may put at risk the very fragile plant of democracy in that country. There was a perceptive article in the New York Herald Tribune over Easter which was widely read by the Portuguese Government, which asked how many democracies had been destroyed by the IMF. If the terms are too stringent, the next 25th April-type revolution will not lead to social democratic Government. If one wants to assess the refined, but perhaps fragile nature of Government in Portugal at the moment, it is pertinent to consider that it is based on a Labour-Conservative agreement, a permutation that has not yet been evolved in this country.
I believe that whether Portugal joins or not—I hope it does—we should take a close interest in the terms that the IMF is putting forward. These are the key so far to European credit, but they should not be such as to turn the key too far and break the lock itself.
The cost of joining was put forward in a helpful document by the Government in their evidence to the Select Committee. Basically, on a budget of 10,200 MEUAs, it would be about an additional 1,000 MEUAs, or under 10 per cent. of the cost, or £650 million.
When one talks of the cost one should compare it with the aid which we are giving to the Lomé countries, which is about 3,000 MUAs in aid and 400 MUAs in EIB loans. For a lesser investment we are enlarging the Community and underpinning democracy in Greece, Spain and Portugal.
The cost to the United Kingdom is about £90 million at the lowest estimate or about £115 million at the top end of the scale. This investment is well worth making in democracy in Europe. I hope that after 10 years it will have transformed the economies of the three joining countries and possibly of the 12 EEC Member States collectively.
There will be long, hard-headed negotiations and many all-night sittings. I hope that if this happens there will not be a tendency on the part of the three applicants to believe that this reflects any diminution of the genuineness of the wish,


of the Nine for the three to join, and of the welcome there will be for them as full members. I am not as pessimistic as the hon. Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson) I believe that this will lead to the necessity for greater co-operation in economic and monetary union, and I shall welcome that.
The fact that the Council of Ministers will number 12—and there is a suggestion that the Commission should be strengthened—is another reason why the European Assembly itself will ask for greater control over the Executive. That, too, I welcome.
Although this is not the first time that European countries have come together in economic and political union—there was the Holy Roman Empire and the Napoleonic Empire—it is the first time that 12 countries which can claim in different ways to have contributed uniquely to Western culture and civilisation over the centuries have voluntarily tried to achieve co-operation politically and economically through peaceful negotiation and agreement. In all the previous examples, co-operation came as a result of war or conquest. This is an exciting concept and a dramatic political evolution, whether one is for or against the Common Market. It is of immense value to the future of Western civilisation. For me, it is a very exciting prospect. It poses immense difficulties, but provided the political will is there, the outcome is not in doubt.

8.25 p.m.

Mr. Jim Spicer: I welcome and support the positive views expressed throughout the Community in sup port of the applications by Greece, Portugal and Spain for membership.
As has been pointed out by the Minister of State and my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Oxon (Mr. Hurd) it is quite clear that there will be major economic stresses placed on the present Community as a result of these three countries joining us. We know that it will also add considerably to our financial burden. However, I do not trust all the financial forecasts for the future. One can toss around figures of £300 million or £400 million and add or subtract a million here or there. But undoubtedly there will be a major financial burden.
We should remind ourselves that exactly the same debate took place when the Community of Six was being enlarged to a Community of Nine. But far more than that, we face the political aspect of enlargement of the Community which is of overriding importance in relation to the three applicant countries. Almost every speaker in the debate has stressed that unless we give our full support to the applicants there is a distinct possibility that they could move away from the West and from their new-found democracy.
I was very fortunate in that I spent some time in both Spain and Portugal watching the evolution of their political parties. Greece has also moved wholeheartedly into democracy. The EEC gave these countries a firm assurance that once they were firmly established as democracies, the Community would live up to its pledge to invite them and welcome them into membership. The time has come for us to redeem that pledge that we gave so freely when those countries were not democratic. In so doing, however, we should not underestimate the effects on the whole Mediterranean policy of the Community in both economic and political terms.
I am certain that the Minister of State and my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Oxon will not be surprised if I turn my attention to one aspect of Mediterranean policy which is at risk as a result of the accession of Greece. We must all deplore the present very poor state of the unhappy relations between Greece and Turkey.
Although Greece became a member of the Community through association as far back as 1962, it was only 18 months later in 1964 that Turkey also became a close partner through association. That link gave Turkey undoubted trade and other advantages which at the time were substantial. Obviously in the case of migrant workers—and preferential treatment was given for textile workers—Turkey was helped by its privileged position.
Over the years since the association agreement was signed we have seen the erosion of this privilege as the Community has entered into other agreements with other countries around the Mediterranean. The mere fact of these agreements being signed with other countries


has eroded the privileges and caused a great deal of resentment in Turkey. To the initial resentment is added the fear of the accession of Greece to the Community. The Turks will see a country with whom they have strained relations being within the Community and in a position to bring unfair pressure to bear upon them.
The Prime Minister of Turkey said a few weeks ago:
At the moment there is no hope for the resuscitation of the relations between Turkey and the EEC which have stagnated for nearly 2 years. What is more, the fact that Greece has declared that she will join the EEC at the latest within two years shows that time is running out to the detriment of Turkey. The Greek Prime Minister, Mr. Karamanlis, has just paid two visits to the countries of the EEC, and he seemed pleased with the outcome. The complaints which we have made up to now because of the few concessions accorded so far to our exports will lose all their significance after Greece has joined the Community. In economic and political spheres Greece will come into conflict with Turkey, since both have the support of the Western powers. Turkey has made it known that she will not ask to join the Community before the year 2000. According to certain observers the best thing Turkey could do, should Greece's application to join be approved, is to ask to benefit from the right of being able to speak on certain issues.
I can assure the House that there is a strong body of opinion within Turkey, the pro-Western opinion, which believes that the only hope for Turkey in relation to the Community is to move more quickly towards membership and to ask for that right to be represented more fully in our councils.
However, I hope that the fears expressed in that quotation by the Prime Minister of Turkey will be unfounded. That they are unfounded can be proved only by a complete reassessment of Turkey's association with the Community, combined with positive help and pledges to Turkey for the future.
June will see the first meeting for nearly two years of the joint EEC-Turkish Parliamentary Association Committee. We had a very happy and friendly relationship with our Turkish colleagues on that committee before this long gap. It is our intention to re-establish that close working relationship as quickly as possible. However, doing this will have no effect on the Community's relationship with Turkey unless, at the same time, the Council and the Commission make clear, as

has been made clear in many speeches tonight, that we understand the desperate state of Turkey's economy and her vital relationship to the Community and to the United Kingdom in defence terms. We should then take positive action in the months ahead to make certain that Turkey is aware that we shall do everything possible to help her in her time of need.

8.31 p.m.

Mr. Nigel Spearing: I think that the whole House is in agreement in welcoming the three applicant nations into the family of democratic nations in Europe. That is central to the considerations before us. We all want to see these fledgling democracies sustained as much as possible.
I was struck by the remarks of the right hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe) about the pressures of the IMF. What he said may, alas, be partly true—that fledgling governments facing all the economic and social problems of a modern State may have pressure put upon them from outside. However, if they become members of the EEC, it will not be only the IMF which is putting pressures upon the internal economies and the social structures of the applicant States. It wil also be the EEC itself.
I am not confident that the present structure of the EEC and the assumptions on which it is based will avoid making those pressures apparent. Therefore, though I wish to see these countries remain democratic, I am not convinced that the EEC as an instiution will help them to do so.
Part of the problem of the accession of these new members, and the doubts that have overcome some of my hon. Friends who are otherwise enthusiasts for the EEC, is that the objects, purposes and modus operandi of the EEC operate on two levels or more. On the surface, theer is an attractive landscape with many details painted of luxuriant vegetation and plenty of pleasant places on which to rest one's weary head. That is the public presentation of the EEC. It is presented as a great international organisation. Phrases such as "peace in our time" and "peace for our grand children" roll out over the debates and in the propaganda. We have heard some of it today.
I suggest that the operation of the EEC does not depend on these more publicly advertised virtues. It is as though the EEC is constructed on piles which go deep down not into the subsoil but into the substructure. The bedrock is deep beneath and partly, if not entirely, hidden. It has entirely different contours and is of a different nature from the surface which is so clearly painted by those who advocate the EEC and by the literature which the EEC sends to us frequently.
That is the central fact which creates the problems of possible enlargement. We have been through the enlargement process and had our problems about fish and the milk marketing boards. Even now, there is the problem of the so-called veto to which the Minister referred. That has not been resolved and will not necessarily be resolved by enlargement.
The EEC is essentially Procrustean in its operation. Those who say that we must come to agreements, maybe not by the veto but by common consent, as the Cabinet does, will say that it all comes out in the wash because in the end everyone will benefit. But that assumes that we agree that the assumptions underlying the EEC and the way in which it works are correct. Many of us do not believe that they are correct. We believe that the economic assumptions that underly the idea of a better life for all do not necessarily work in the way that the rather crude economics of the Treaty of Rome imply.
I wish to put this test to the accession of Greece. Document S/227/76, the Commission's opinion on the Greek application for membership, deals only with Greece, but many of that country's characteristics are shared by Spain and Portugal.
We know that Greece is not an industrial country, but it has a small and active industrial sector. The Commission's assessment says that Greek industry has:
an extensive system of aids.
Clearly that system will have to be dismantled or modified over the period of the accession treaty.
It appears that the Procrustean table is at work and the structure of Greek industry will be in for some shocks. No longer

will the Greek Parliament or Cabinet be able to decide what is appropriate for Greek industry. This is one of the examples of the sub-structure and its operations.
I do not believe that this is essentially democratic. It may be that, through international negotiations, the Greeks may agree to do certain things on their own volition about their own industry, but that is another matter. That is not how the EEC works. Greek agriculture is paramount in the economy of the country, maybe not in terms of figures—though it is a much higher proportion of GNP than in the rest of the EEC States—but certainly in terms of people.
The Foreign Office document and the Commission document describe agriculture almost entirely in terms of units of account and abstract figures. One figure stands out. The Commission's document points out that 35·7 per cent. of the Greek population is engaged in agriculture. That compares with an average of 9·6 per cent. of the populations in the rest of the EEC. Clearly that figure of 35·7 per cent. means that between 40 per cent. and 50 per cent. of the population works in agriculture or agriculture-based industries in villages or in jobs related closely to the land. That is a very big proportion.
The document spells out clearly that these agriculture holdings, which are, on average, only 20 acres, are very fragmented—no doubt through inheritance—and there is a great deal of what is called hidden unemployment. That is true of Southern Italy as well though not of Northern Italy, and it is true of parts of Spain and parts of Portugal.
What is the EEC policy for agriculture? We turn to Article 39 of the Treaty of Rome where the objectives of the common agriculture policy are spelt out. The first objective is set out in paragraph (a) as follows:
to increase agricultural productivity by promoting technical progress and by ensuring the rational development of agricultural production".
We know something of the effects of the common agricultural policy in this country, but if that is the policy to be pursued as a first objective, what will happen to the 35·7 per cent. of people on the land? If one is to increase productivity in terms of output per person,


theoretically the food in production or land in cultivation remains the same and the ends can be achieved with fewer people.
That may be possible, but we have heard that there is already a good deal of hidden unemployment, as though that is a bad thing. It may be a bad thing purely from the point of view of the economy, but I suggest that in certain countries, particularly Greece, if there is to be unemployment it will be much better related to land, where leisure and work can take their proper part in a socially coherent community, based on land ownership and perhaps in a reasonably stable rural environment. If one shakes out that system and sends people to the towns where they cannot find work and become unemployed, large numbers of people who notionally in economist terms would be available for industrial production would be kicking their heels, as indeed they are in many countries of the West today. Therefore, I suspect that the objectives of the CAP, including productivity, would not help in that respect either, nor would it necessarily help if it means productivity in terms of increased agricultural production. We know of the surpluses that already exist, and there will be problems of surpluses, including tobacco, because Greece grows some tobacco. Additional support will be necessary.
I believe, as do many of my hon. Friends, that the real objectives of CAP are other than those spelt out in Article 39 of the Treaty of Rome. There is no mention in that article of intervention buying, or of dumping surplus food on world markets, yet these are the hallmarks of the CAP. All that Article 39 1(c) refers to is the stabilisation of markets. I do not think that the EEC has benefited a great many people in the EEC as it is, and I suggest that it would not necessarily be of very much help to the Greek people.
I wish to make some quotations from the document on the Greek application for membership. Page 8 of the document reads:
Greek agricultural prices to the producer are in many cases (in particular for fruit and vegetables …) considerably lower than in the Community.
Therefore, if Greece is now producing fruit and vegetables at a much lower price

than in the rest of the Community, does that mean that Greek fruit and vegetables will come on to our market? That may be a good thing, but it also provides something of a problem.
On that same page, we see the following statement:
Given the considerable difference between the structure of agriculture in Greece and the EEC, abrupt modifications of the prices paid to Greek producers which are not accompanied by changes in the structure of Greek agriculture could create imbalance as regards incomes of different categories of agricultural producers.
What a way of putting it! That is typical EEC-ese. It is saying that if Greece joins and there is not a reasonable—indeed, a fairly lengthy—period of accession, there can be sudden changes in the incomes of Greek farmers. Clearly, if there are those sudden changes there will be structural and social tensions in society. We know that sudden changes lead to difficulties, grievances, on the one hand, and, on the other hand, people perhaps pocketing large sums suddenly, as though they had experienced a windfall.
I do not think that the EEC as it is will therefore be of the benefit that some of my hon. Friends would like to think that it will be. I asked my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson) what was the answer to the dilemma, and he said that it would be in his peroration. His peroration was "enthusiasm". Enthusiasm would apparently drive away the sort of problems that we have.
I should like to put to the House another possible solution. I hope that the negotiations for the accession of Greece, Portugal and Spain will throw new light on the actual operation of the EEC. We have already had a lecture about the possibilities of a new-style Cabinet Government, the problems that there will be for the Council. I have suggested some of the problems that there will be for the agricultural policy and the internal anomalies that exist and have not been analysed as much they might.
I hope that in the negotiations for the accession of these three countries the EEC will begin to sort itself out, that it will see that its only future is not as a supranational organisation heading towards economic and monetary union, or


political union, but that in truth it will become a community of nations co-operating for a common purpose. It is only by that means that the real aims and purposes of democracy can be established. I believe that that is the only way in which the EEC, reformed, can properly assist the democracy of these three applicant States.

8.48 p.m.

Mrs. Winifred Ewing: Hon. Members will not be too surprised if I tell them that as a member of the Scottish National Party I find that the word "enlargement" has a slightly different connotation from that which it perhaps has for any other hon. Member present.
It appears to my party that we are on the road to self-government for Scotland. I should like to mention another of the West Lothian questions, not the one that has bogged down this House but one that we have in the European Parliament. The West Lothian question there, from time to time, is "What would the Commission and the Council do if part of a member State simply hived off?" The member State part is thinly disguised as Scotland, so thinly that immediately on the West Lothian question's being asked the whole Parliament looks round at me to see my response.
My response there, as here, on possible enlargement to include a self-governing Scotland is simply this: if we can achieve self-government through the democratic process, which is our aim, the question is not whether we have any worry or fear that the EEC would woo an independent Scotland; rather, it is whether an independent Scotland, with the richest fishpond in the world, with our stocks of energy and oil, with our other wealth, and our growth rate of 10 per cent. projected this year, compared with 4½ per cent. for the United Kingdom, would graciously allow the suit of courtship towards us. That would depend on the view of the people of Scotland. There would be a number of rocks on which that idea would perish, one of two of which I hope to tell the Minister about.
My party welcomes the enlargement of the EEC, for reasons rather along the lines of what the hon. Member for New-

ham, South (Mr. Spearing) has just said. I shall refrain from making some of his points, which I had noted.
We are opposed to the CAP in its rigid and non-flexible form. We do not think that it can work. We hope that it will break down. I would rather see whatever moneys are contributed by member States to an organisation of co-operation spent on a much more generous dollop of funds to the regional policy and the social policy. Under the word "social" there are the broadest implications for the cultural and educational aspects. That is what I hope will happen with the accession of these applicant States. I echo all that has been said about the greatest event, perhaps, of the last decade being the achievement of democratic forms of Government in these States. That is a most exciting event.
We indulge in these self-congratulatory epithets suggesting that everything in the garden of Europe is lovely. We are told that we are so democratic. Perhaps the applicant States ought to consider whether the EEC is sufficiently democratic. It appears to me that it is singularly undemocratic. That is another of the reservations that my party has always had about our entry to and our remaining in the Community.
For instance, the European Parliament is a democratic institution. I am a Member of that Parliament and I wish it to work as well as possible. That is why I welcome direct elections—in the hope that they will give the Parliament more direct control over the two-headed monster which is the Commission. This is a well-entrenched Executive, different from any national Parliament. It initiates legislation. It decides what the legislative programme will be. One wonders whether, even if the Parliament is directly elected, the Commission will give up any of its powers.
The Council of Ministers has also behaved badly and will not allow any of its deliberations, even its legislative ones, to be open, even to members of the appropriate Committees of the Parliament, let alone to public scrutiny. I have a letter here from the Minister of State sympathising with the view that I have frequently expressed in the European Parliament, saying that the United Kingdom is hoping to persuade the Council


to become more open. There are many other examples that I could give.
As a woman Member of the European Parliament I cannot take very much satisfaction in the status of women in the Parliament and within the set of institutions. There is hardly one woman in a senior post. All the women representing the various countries and parties have expressed this viewpoint. It does not augur too well for an organisation claiming to be democratic and representing a community in which half the population is female.
Is the EEC as highly motivated as we are told? I reiterate the remarks of the hon. Member for Newham, South. I remember, when the debates about entry to the Community took place in this House, that the reasons for entry narrowed down to two. The two Front Benches at that time were putting forward the same arguments. One argument was that by entering the Community we would acquire a better growth rate, in some way never quite explained. The other concerned a political motivation. It was said that Britain would be great again. I remember hearing both sides of the House saying that in my earlier term as a Member of Parliament.
It is perhaps understandable that Britain is mourning its lost empire and would like to be in a big pond again. I have a reservation about the essential motivation of the EEC because so often one hears expression being given to the idea that it is some kind of supranational power bloc with a military purpose, to a great extent, perhaps, built on fear.
On the other hand, as a Member of the European Parliament, I am aware that many Members of that institution are genuinely idealistic about it. Many of them, elderly men who are the products of a war-torn Europe, see in it the hope that there will never be another European war. There are two ways of looking at the set of institutions. As we are in the EEC the best thing to do is to hope that we can make it more democratic and lead it away from undesirable tendencies such as economic and monetary union.
I hope that the enlargement, to include the three new States, will make economic and monetary union less likely. I have never been successful in getting a

satisfactory answer from the Government Front Bench about their policy towards economic and monetary union. The answers that I have had have shown that the Government's policy is not in favour of such a union. Perhaps the Minister will comment on what effect, if any, he thinks enlargement would have on the attitude towards economic and monetary union adopted by so many Members of this House and other member States.
My last point is really a series of worries about certain industries, and I ask the Minister to comment on at least some of them. We have had a good discussion on the common agricultural policy, so I will say little about it. I have already said that I do not think that, basically, it can work. I hope that it will go away and that we can get back to some degree of rationality.
For example, there is the attitude towards our milk deliveries. It is an example of the absurd. If we interfered with our excellent form of milk distribution, we should be interfering with something that works. Indeed, we would actually be putting at risk the health of our citizens, because, I have no doubt, after considerable study, that the consumption of milk has played a part in improving the health of our children. What the other member States should be aiming at is emulating our milk distribution system and drinking more of the stuff than they do at present. That would be to their advantage.
Again, we are told that one of the applicant countries has considerable interests in textiles. Our textile industry is very important to the whole of the United Kingdom, including Scotland. It takes a sizeable share of the economy. In terms of population, it employs in the United Kingdom about 800,000 people. Thus, it is one of our most important industries. A huge amount of money goes into the Exchequer from its balance of payments earnings. Will there be protection in this case? Will there be further risk that the industry will suffer by the accession of these new member States?
What about our steel industry, which is being further decimated by Community requirements? What effect will the accession of these three countries have on that industry?
In considering regional policy, one can hope, on the periphery, as Scotland is that the accession of other countries on the periphery will make for a better understanding of pressure for better regional policies. There seems to me to be often a failure on the part of some of the member States—for example, Germany—to understand what, for example, rural roads and rural haulage entail. They do not understand what it is like in the North and in rural parts of Scotland. Hence, we had the difficulty over drivers' hours regulations, which, if they had been immediately enforceable, would have put most small hauliers in such areas out of business.
Perhaps, therefore, the accession of periphery countries with remote areas and definite regional problems will mean a better understanding all round of the very grave regional imbalances of a country like Scotland. A more enlightened view must be taken of regional policy.
No one will be surprised if I express my considerable fears about the effect of the accession of these three countries on the fishpond and the fish stocks. The Minister of State wrote to me on 24th April saying that he agreed about the serious state of a number of the fish stocks. He did not rule out, at the end of his letter, non-discriminatory measures to conserve stocks around our coasts. This is a matter of grave concern, because the fishing industry covers many areas where there is no alternative employment.
In the EEC, I find that often Britain is lectured for being very nationalistic—just as this House lectures me for being nationalistic. It is rather the same, but carried a step further forward. In the fishing debate a compromise solution was nearly reached—it came from the rapporteur of the time, the hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull, East (Mr. Prescott). It was at least acceptable to the United Kingdom, across the spectrum of parties. It was also acceptable to quite a number of other member States.
In the event, the proposal was beaten by two votes, with the Germans coming in and lecturing us about how we could fish to their beaches and they could fish to ours. They said that we were being nationalistic. It made me wonder where

the sense of it was, as the Germans have no beaches with fish at them.
This is the kind of thing that is happening in the EEC. There is a great deal there which one can admire, but Rome was not built in a day. The Parliament has existed for only 20 years, and it could be improved. I think that the best improvement would be to make it looser than it would be under the proposed economic and monetary union. If these three countries—Greece, Spain and Portugal—accede, I hope that they will not find themselves and their industries worse off. I certainly see advantages for the present member States by the accession of those three States, for the reasons that I have given.

9.0 p.m.

Mr. Neil Marten: The Minister was very courteous in his opening when he said that there were some who wanted enlargement so that this would dilute the Common Market. He recognised that argument, and it is one that I have always supported, purely on the ground that, being a very European-minded person, as the Minister knows, my objection is just to the Treaty of Rome. If the Treaty of Rome can be broken down by the entry of these three countries, I think that at last Europe will be moving along on the right road, which is one of co-operation between countries in Europe and not just co-operation between a limited number of countries in Europe.
I say that although I am, as the hon. Member for Moray and Nairn (Mrs. Ewing) said, a product of war-torn Europe. I think that is the right way in which we should all approach unity in Europe and that we should drop the idea of economic, monetary and political union in Europe. I think it does great damage to the cause of European unity.
I was very glad to hear the Minister say that the Government would stick firm and maintain the veto. I was not absolutely certain that my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Oxon (Mr. Hurd) was quite as firm. I hope that I was wrong. I will read Hansard tomorrow. I think it is very necessary that the Opposition should take exactly the same view as the Government on their firmness about the veto.
In The Times of 29th April there is an article about majority voting which I think is rather disturbing. It states:
Britain and the other three big EEC countries—France, West Germany and Italy—will have to accept a greater use of majority voting in the Council of Ministers if unacceptably long delays in reaching decisions are to be avoided in an enlarged Community of 12 States. This is one of the most sensitive of the recommendations recently unveiled by the European Commission for coping with Spanish, Greek and Portuguese membership in the 1980s. More details of what Mr. Roy Jenkins and his fellow commissioners have in mind have now been released.
Later in the article it is stated:
But the Commission argues that majority voting should be used not only where the treaty provides but also where there is 'no imperious reason' for insisting on unanimity.
I think that that goes much too far. I am not sure who is to judge whether there is an imperious reason. I think that each side of the House should be absolutely clear that the veto will remain, as described earlier, as the pistol in the holster which is not used but which can be used and which is the deterrent against majority voting.
I believe that the entry of these three countries will illustrate the classic nonsense of the common agricultural policy. Therefore, I think it will encourage the Common Market to accept at last that the countries of the Common Market should move over to a national agricultural policy. The percentage of the work force in agriculture in Spain is 22. In Portugal the figure is 28 per cent., in Greece 35 per cent., and in the EEC as a whole 8·7 per cent. In the United Kingdom it is less than 3 per cent.
We seem to be taking into the Community countries which have a great number of small farmers, and the one thing that the Community has been trying to do over the past years is to get rid of small farmers. Now it will be having once again the same problem, and it will be very costly. Resources will have to be drained off if these countries are to achieve their aims.
The hon. Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) referred to prices and so on. I believe that the entry of these countries, and putting them under the common agricultural policy, will increase enormously the surpluses in Europe. For example, cereal prices in the three countries are much lower than they are in the

Common Market. The same can be said of wine and olive oil. If those commodities go up to Common Market prices there will be enormous extra production. That, I believe, will encourage enormous surpluses as well as a diversion of trade from the other Mediterranean countries. That is something which the Commission ought to watch.
We had that experience when we entered. For example, Australia was told that it could diversify. It tried to, but what happened? Where Australia tries to sell its produce now, it is met by competition from heavily subsidised EEC exports. I do not think we would want the same situation to occur when these three countries join, because as Mr. Fraser said,
The Common Market has now become a narrow, self-interested trading group trying to make the world dance to its tune.
I do not think anyone would like that to occur.
In addition, if food prices rise to the current Common Market prices I believe that there will be political trouble with the peoples of those countries. They will not like the rise in the price of food. Under the terms of the Treaty of Rome, the Common Market must ensure a fair standard of living for poor farmers and farm workers. This will all take a great amount of money. It will fall back on to the British taxpayer. That is something we have to consider very carefully. If we want these countries in, the solution would be to abandon the CAP. This may be the very moment to choose to abandon this ridiculous and wasteful agricultural policy.
I should also like to support what was said about Turkey. We must pay great attention in that regard.
I hope, too, that the Spanish people will open the frontier with Gibraltar as a condition of negotiating their way in. They should not wait until they have finally joined. They ought to open the frontier with Gibraltar before the negotiations actually start. I hope that the Government will make that absolutely clear.
With regard to immigration, we should also recognise that the addition of these three countries will allow in quite a number of people who at the moment the Conservative Party would be trying to keep out. Available to come into this


country will be the Arabs from Spain and the Angolans who fled from Angola and are now in Portugal. It will not be open to this country to stop those people coming in should we wish to do so.
I am terrified of the increase in the languages that will be used. For example, in the Commission itself there are 1,050 interpreter-translators. An additional three more languages will mean increasing the number of interpreters and translators not only in the Commission but also in the European Assembly.
I am in favour of the entry of these three countries because I believe it will break down the Common Market into something which is far more sensible and which is along the road which we should have gone in the beginning. I am sure that these countries will not want to surrender their sovereignty or take part in any form of federal organisation. I hope that when they come in they will make that absolutely clear. In that case they will have my full support.

9.8 p.m.

Mr. John Roper: For the first time in any of these debates on the European Community—debates that go back over a number of years—I find myself in total agreement with the conclusion of the hon. Member for Banbury (Mr. Marten), but not necessarily with the supporting argument that he used in coming to it. I also support the enlargement of the Community by adding these three further members, because I believe that it will provide a full basis for developing a European economic and political union.
The most exciting thing to me over the past year—in talking to Portuguese and Spanish Socialists who have come and joined in the parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe—is that they have said "We want to come into the Community as soon as possible. This is something that we wish to be a member of". That is one of the best advertisements for the European Community that I know of. Countries which have escaped from a period of totalitarian rule now want to join in our Community, not to dilute it or water it down but in order to build it up and to achieve the objectives which they and I wish to see achieved in a European Community which is able to move forward to the Social Democratic objectives which they and I share.
That is why this debate is of such importance. I think that it is important that the Government prepared for us the useful memorandum to which my hon. Friend the Minister of State has referred. I am also glad that at rather short notice they have also made available to us the fresco document from the Commission, although unfortunately that is incomplete, as the detailed analyses on the economic and institutional aspects of enlargement which are referred to in its preface were not available in the Vote Office when I went to seek them. That is yet another argument why we should have a further debate when those further documents are available.
I want to refer to two or three specific items. First, reference has been made to the problem of the textile industry—by, among others, the hon. Member for Moray and Nairn (Mrs. Ewing). Coming from Lancashire, I must point out, as was made clear by the CBI when it gave evidence to the House of Lords Committee on this matter, that the Portuguese textile industry is this country's third largest source of low-cost textiles. Quite clearly, considerable care would have to be devoted to watching the position of that textile industry and its impact upon the rest of Europe's textiles.
This is not just a plea for Lancashire's textiles. I am convinced that all the members of Comitextil, representing the whole of the Community, would want to see proper arrangements made for the place of Portuguese textiles in any process of enlargement. That is where the fresco document's proposal for a two-stage process, perhaps extending over 10 years, would be appropriate.
The question of languages was referred to by the hon. Member for Banbury, among others. I think that we have to accept that inevitably all of the languages of the new members will have to be official languages of the Community. Given that Community regulations become immediately applicable in member States, it is impossible for the law not to be available in the language of each of those countries. I also believe that in the European Parliament it is imperative that Members should be able to speak in their own languages and should not be restricted or inhibited by having to speak in some other language, and that it should not be a qualification for membership


that one should be able to speak in another language.
However, having said that, I believe that in the working practices of the Commission and the European Parliament there ought to be a restricted number of working languages. I very much hope that the Government will, in the discussions that will take place from now on, be able to work out very clearly what those working languages can be. I very much hope that they can be as few as possible.
I come to the point which is perhaps one of the major arguments that have run through the debate—the question whether, on the one hand, widening of the Community equals loosening of the Community, leading to the dilute organisation that the hon. Member for Banbury supports, or whether, on the other hand, as is argued in some parts of the Commission's fresco document—perhaps overenthusiastically—one cannot have widening without a turn of the screw, an increase in central decision-making. It seems to me that one has to try to strike a balance between these and say that at present, as is put forward in the Government's memorandum, we should attempt to follow the sort of pattern that has occurred before.
It is worth quoting the paragraph in the memorandum that my hon. Friend submitted to the House on 7th March dealing with the question of the veto, Paragraph 3, dealing with institutions, says that
In dealing with routine business the Council already operates by establishing where the majority view lies, in the expectation that a Member State will not block a decision which commands general support; this is in effect an informal majority decision-taking system.
I think that it is a system which in other terms was described by the hon. Member for Mid-Oxon (Mr. Hurd).
There is already at work a process which goes quite a long way towards an informal majority decision-taking process. I believe that it would be a great mistake to reopen all the theological arguments about the Luxembourg compromise at this stage. I believe that we should enable that process, which has developed very happily, particularly under the British presidency, to continue. As the Commission suggests in its own paper, this might evolve in other direc-

tions, as people begin to have confidence in it. It is not something than can be rushed; it is something that will come as people gain confidence in the Community as an institution.
I promised to speak briefly, and I come to a close now. I conclude by saying that I believe that that which is before us is a step forward. It is a step not towards a dilution, to a form of inter-governmental co-operation, but a step towards creating a wider and fuller base on which the economic and political union of Europe may be built.

9.16 p.m.

Mr. Peter Mills: I welcome the opportunity to speak for a short time in the debate. I welcome the enlargement of the Community to 12 member countries. I must make it clear that I am no expert on foreign affairs or on defence. I wish to make a few remarks on agriculture.
I do not think that those who have spoken so far have exaggerated the problems of agriculture and the CAP. However, what I deplore about some of the interventions and speeches is the defeatist attitude that is shown towards the CAP and agriculture in Europe. I believe that it is a challenge. It is a matter that we should seek to do something about and to change in the light of experience. Therefore, I wish to bring to the attention of the House some of my fears about enlargement and the effect on agriculture within the Community as a whole.
My hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. Marten) talked about the CAP being "a classic nonsense". I think that that was the phrase.

Mr. Marten: That is right.

Mr. Mills: I do not think that that is so. In the light of experience we have seen that some mistakes have been made and that some changes are necessary. That is why I am keen to see the enlargement of the Community.
What will enlargement do? It will give the Community as a whole the opportunity of making the fundamental radical changes that are necessary. From my short experience of politics—a great deal less than many who are present tonight—I believe that it is necessary for politicians to get off the hook. Certainly that is true


of the politicians of the Community. Enlargement offers the chance. That is why I welcome the opportunity of enlargement. However, before we have enlargement we must make the necessary changes in the CAP that I consider essential. That is my main point.
For goodness sake let us get things right now. Let us start pressing within the Community to ensure that we make the fundamental changes that are necessary in the light of experience of agriculture in Europe.
Let us consider the problems of enlargement. Paragraph 10 of the consultative document clearly states that:
Agriculture plays a far less important role in the Community than in the applicant countries.
That is true. That suggests to me that there will be greater needs in the three new member countries. They will be applying for more help and more aid for amalgamations, more help and more aid for support and more help and more aid for farm improvements. That is a very good thing.

Mr. J. Enoch Powell: It is good for them.

Mr. Mills: Although it is important that we move into this area slowly and carefully, learning from the mistakes that we have made in the CAP, I welcome enlargement. I do not agree with those who say that we should literally keep the peoples of the three applicant countries in peasant conditions. I want to see an improvement in agriculture in Greece, Portugal and Spain.

Mr. Powell: Why?

Mr. Mills: I believe it is right that we should help them to improve their position to take advantage of modern methods and generally to assist them in the production of food in their countries.

Mr. Powell: Why?

Mr. Spearing: rose—

Mr. Mills: I shall not give way, as others want to speak.
It is important that we should watch that point carefully. I do not believe that we should deny these three countries the improvement and advantages which are so necessary.
There is another point that is made in document—the whole problem of surpluses. It is important to be fair about this matter. It would be a very serious matter if Spain were producing a surplus of dairy products, but she is not. It would be very serious if Spain were producing a surplus of meat and adding to the so-called mountain—I do not agree that there is a mountain—but she is not. I look on this matter from a positive point of view. Spain is a country to which a certain amount of our surpluses can be diverted. I know that farmers in the South-West of England are looking forward to the opportunity of sending some of their beef and mutton on a deadweight basis to these countries. It may be of great advantage to the Community as a whole to divert some of the surpluses of dairy products and of meat to these three applicant countries.
Let us look at these matters from a more positive point of view rather than constantly to seek to make the worst of them all. Basically, we believe in the Community and what it does from a defence and, indeed, political point of view. Let us try to seize the opportunities that these three applicant countries will give us to make the changes and to deal with the problems that we have.

9.22 p.m.

Mr. Nick Budgen: I suppose that all who take part in these debates should start by declaring their prejudices. I declare my prejudices as having been in favour of going into and of remaining within the EEC. But, unlike some of those who fought those battles with me, I do not believe that the EEC is here for ever. I do not believe in a federal Europe. I do not believe in economic and monetary union. I see the EEC as only a temporary alliance of nation States. I hoped, most of all, that the EEC would be a method by which France and Germany would at least be temporarily locked together in an alliance which would prevent them from causing a Third World War in this century.
Therefore, I believed that it was vital that the EEC should concentrate not on peripheral things, such as bureaucratic proposals for regulating the operations of self-employed commercial agents, but on foreign affairs and perhaps ultimately on


defence, particularly in the event of America moving towards a more isolationist posture.
I also hoped—this was a secondary but important aim—that perhaps the EEC might become a free trade area, even a free market area, and that it might perhaps become an alliance of rich men who would be able to become richer by their alliance.
As I said, I saw it as a temporary alliance. I did not see it as lasting for ever, any more than other alliances do. But tonight perhaps we are taking one further step towards its death. I believe that the EEC, if we allow Greece, Portugal and Spain to enter, will die just that little bit more quickly than perhaps it would otherwise, for they will add to the multiplicity of objectives which have been foisted upon the EEC ideal—more and more contrasting and impossible objectives. In the end, the whole bureaucracy of the EEC will be so grossly overladen that it will break up.
It is strange that the Tory Party, which I understand is said to be the party of Europe—which I suppose means that none of us has any doubts about any of the objectives of those who now support the European ideal—should be allied to those whose avowed intention is to smash up the EEC. Surely we should look with scepticism at some of the arguments that are being advanced for allowing Greece to come in.
I turn to the arguments made by my hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Oxon (Mr. Hurd). The most important of his arguments was that the EEC should progress. I do not know what he means by progress. He sounded rather like the chairman of a large conglomerate company explaining how advantageous it would be to take in a few more companies and how much more profit there would be as a result. I do not believe that progress in an alliance can be judged by the number of people who join it, nor can it be judged by the multiplicity of the objectives of the alliance. My hon. Friend went on to say that we have to allow Greece, Portugal and Spain in—he was also nodding in the direction of Turkey—because if we denied them their application it would be a cruel blow to their stability.
That is a wholly fallacious argument. The idea that an external country can

give to the internal events of another nation State any element of stability is entirely wrong. I shall give the House a crude example. I refer to the interesting argument by Lord Paget in relation to Rhodesia. He said that he hoped that the internal settlement would stick and that the best way to ensure that was by having to defend Rhodesia and its settlement against external forces. The single most cohesive thing that can be appied to the internal events of a nation is not external interference with a desire to help. It is probably external aggression. The same argument is being used today.

Mr. Peter Rees: Could my hon. Friend develop that argument? Does he feel that Marshall Aid had a stabilising effect on Western Europe? Does he think that Russian intervention in 1947–48 would have made for stability in Europe?

Mr. Budgen: I say that every now and then temporary intervention by another State is helpful for a limited aim. I say that where a country wishes to give itself economic or constitutional stability it does so by its own efforts. Those who are for ever looking for a cure for our economic and social ills to countries abroad are crying for something which is impossible.
Just as our salvation will be created by ourselves so, if there be a salvation for the people of Greece, it will be achieved by the Greeks themselves. I do not know what are their objectives. It should not be assumed, for instance, that because we have 200-acre farms they will want 200-acre farms. It should not be assumed that because we are a highly materialistic society they will wish to make the same mistake. They wish to achieve their own salvation. We shall not assist their stability by taking them into the EEC.
My hon. Friend the Member for Mid-Oxon also said that we must accept them because they have not gone Communist. Here I take up the argument put forward by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dover and Deal (Mr. Rees). In desperation we have often allied ourselves to countries with internal regimes which we have wholly deplored. We were most grateful for the alliance with Russia in the last war, and perhaps in the next war


we would be most grateful for an alliance with China. That does not mean that we would approve of China's internal arrangements. Nor does it mean that its internal arrangements would be in any way a condition precedent to the alliance. If we were to say that we must accept the applicant countries because they had not gone Communist, would that mean in the event of the Italians or the French going Communist they must be expelled from the EEC?

Mr. Marten: Yes.

Mr. Budgen: I conclude by saying that the proposals being put forward tonight are making sure that this temporary alliance of the EEC will die sooner rather than later.

9.32 p.m.

Mr. Geoffrey Rippon: I very much welcome, as I am sure most hon. Members will have done, the speech of the Minister of State in opening this short and stimulating debate. I understand that the Government are to provide another day before the Summer Recess for this topic. I am sure that that is right because, as the Minister of State said, this is the most important subject before the European Community.
It has been said that the duty of a politician is not just to be partisan. We need to have a mission, a sense of purpose, and I think that the goal of a truly united Europe, as we have found so often before in the past, transcends our traditional party divisions. In Britain the concept of a united Europe has always gone beyond the idea of a Europe of the Six, the Nine or even the Twelve. When the Community was established and we unfortunately failed to join, we assisted in the foundation of EFTA. EFTA was created not as a barrier but as a bridge until such time as we could succeed in building the wider Europe that we wanted.
We all know that the Treaty of Rome provides that any European State may apply to become a member of the Community. Our purpose, as I see it, has always been that it should ultimately embrace all the members of the Western European family. Wherever possible these members should be full members of the Community, or associated as closely as possible where traditional neutrality,

in the case of Switzerland or Sweden, or treaty-imposed neutrality, in the case of Austria or Finland, makes full membership not desired or impossible. Against that background we should welcome and facilitate in accordance with the letter and spirit of the Treaty of Rome the accession to the EEC of Greece, Spain and Portugal. I share entirely the views expressed by my hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, West (Mr. Spicer) in trusting that in due course Turkey, whose association agreement, like that of Greece, expressly provided for the possibility of full membership, will join too.
I have always shared the view that was expressed by the late Mr. Anthony Crosland who as Foreign Secretary said on 12th January last year:
The political benefits of enlargement outweigh all the practical difficulties".
I also share his view that enlargement will give a new strength to European democracy.
I agree with the Minister of State about the timing. We should not delay enlargement, because delay can serve no useful purpose and much might be lost. If we keep the applicants waiting in the wings for too long they may well leave the stage altogether. For years we have been assuring the peoples of Greece, Spain and Portugal that if only they became democracies they would have the opportunity to join the European Community. Here again I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Dorset, West.
The new generation of political leaders in these countries have relied firmly upon these assurances and we have now the clear obligation in the Community to give effect to them. If we were to betray the hopes that we ourselves have aroused we would reap a terrible harvest of disillusion in those countries—a harvest which might well destroy the new democracies that have turned to us for the support they need and deserve. If we were to do that we would undermine our own prosperity and security.
Of course there are problems, just as there were when we joined. These problems will require special transitional and other measures. But these problems should not be exaggerated. I think that the right hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe) was right in saying that there should be no question whatever of


pre-accession transitional arrangements. These countries must be full members from the outset, whatever transitional arrangements may be made.
There is already a considerable volume of trade between the existing Community and the new applicants. A great quantity of Greek wine already goes to France even though there might be some difficulty in finding a bottle there.
My hon. Friend the Member for Banbury (Mr. Marten) was gloomy about olive oil. Are we to believe that the future of Western Europe turns on controlling the future supply of olive oil? My hon. Friend the Member for Devon, West (Mr. Mills) was much more constructive. No one has to defend every aspect of the CAP, and we never have done so. But the object must be to improve it in the interests of existing and new members.
Spain is already largely dependent upon its trade with the Community. About one-third of Spain's imports come from the Community, which takes almost half of Spanish exports. The hon. Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson) was wrong when he said that industry is not concerned about these matters. I chaired a conference on business in Spain which was organised by the Financial Times and I can assure him that there was great interest in expanding trade with Spain.
Again, almost half of Portugal's external trade is already with the Community. This is a measure of the EEC's existing importance to the Portuguese economy. We in the United Kingdom always have been particularly concerned about this because we take 50 per cent. of Portuguese exports and we had a great deal to do with the association agreement which Portgual negotiated when we joined the EEC. We had then to deal with the provision of tomato puree, which is so essential to the can of British baked beans.
Apart from these matters, which can be dealt with at an official level—they do not raise very great political issues—the main anxieties about enlargement have centred on cost. The Commission has estimated that if the three applicants had been members of the Community this year the net extra budgetary cost to the

Nine would have been about £650 million.
We already give some aid to these countries. We are rightly proud about the aid we give to the developing world as a whole. Surely we can give some priority to those who dwell in our continent and who wish to continue to be our friends and allies.
In or out of the Community, Greece, Spain, Portugal and Turkey will continue to need aid if they are to succeed in bridging the development gap separating them from us. Here again I agree with what the right hon. Member for Devon, North said about the IMF initiative being totally inadequate in present circumstances. At the most it is a key which opens opportunities for further aid from the Community as a whole.
We must face the fact that in our own interests, as much as in theirs, sweeping measures, as the Commission have indicated, should be taken to lay down new guidelines for their development and at the same time to ensure markets for their products. On the one hand, we have the Europe of the Nine with an over-capacity in production and a loss of confidence that the wheels will ever start turning again. On the other hand, there are these new applicant States plus Turkey, all with a large trade deficit with the Community and with an urgent and enormous need for industrial equipment and development which we can supply.
To take up the point made by my hon. and learned Friend the Member for Dover and Deal (Mr. Rees) in his intervention, I suggest that only an action on the scale of the Marshall Plan can give the necessary injection of demand which the industries of the Nine require, restore a general confidence in the future and, at the same time, match the needs of developing the economies of the applicant countries so that they can accept the treaty obligations and participate fully in inter-European and world trade.
President Truman and General Marshall rescued Europe in 1948. They believed in the values of our European society, in our capacity and in our future. We in the Nine, the richer countries of Europe, have obligations to the poorer ones and we must show the same faith


and determination in saving ourselves as the Marshall Plan did for Europe.

9.42 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs (Mr. John Tomlinson): Hon. Members have today shown that there is an encouragingly wide recognition, common to both sides of the House, of the significance of enlargement. As a number of speakers have said, in this useful and well-informed debate this is one of the most important issues facing the Community today.
Hon. Members—perhaps with the exception of the hon. Member for Wolverhampton, South-West (Mr. Budgen), with his idiosyncratic views—have shown that there is overwhelming agreement that we must respond positively to the desire of Greece, Portugal and Spain to join the Community. The debate has demonstrated, however, that there is a legitimate concern about the consequences of enlargement for Britain, the Community and the applicants. It is particularly valuable to air this concern at a moment when the Community is at last settling down to serious thinking about the way in which it is to cope with enlargement and when substantive negotiations with the first applicant are beginning. The Government will bear in mind all that has been said by hon. Members as they frame their policy and as the individual negotiations and discussions unfold.
I should like to reply to some of the questions raised in the debate. I reiterate the words of my hon. Friend the Minister of State in his apologies and regrets about the circumstances of the curtailment of the debate. I am sure that hon. Members will be satisfied that further consideration will be given to this important subject.
I say one thing to the hon. Member for Mid-Oxon (Mr. Hurd). I cannot agree that the Prime Minister's letter to Mr. Hayward, the General Secretary of the Labour Party, could be described as a letter which caused much comment and trouble. It might have caused comment, but "trouble" is a wrong description. It has achieved an understanding which we should not denigrate, not only in the Labour Party but amongst a number of other people in the country, of precisely

where the Government stand on a number of important issues. It is churlish to denigrate that letter as having caused trouble. It has been of fundamental significance and is welcomed by the majority of Members on both sides of the House because of its clarity of purpose.
A question that has figured prominently in the debate is whether efficiency can be improved by greater use of majority voting. It was referred to by the hon. Member for Mid-Oxon, my hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East (Mr. Anderson), the right hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe), my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South (Mr. Spearing) and the hon. Member for Banbury (Mr. Marten). We cannot see that greater use of formal majority voting will speed up the work of the Council either before or after enlargement. An informal system already exists and is working all the time to resolve routine matters by establishing where the majority preference lies.
On all routine matters, States that find themselves in a minority are under a certain degree of pressure to fall in with the consensus and allow a decision to be taken. This system has worked and has preserved Community solidarity through some very difficult times, precisely because it is informal and is not based on dogmatic rules.
All countries, even those that demonstrate a fetish for majority voting, have some issues that are so important to them that they would not, in practice, want to be outvoted. That is why the practice of the Council since the Luxembourg compromise is to allow any State to ask for discussion to be continued without a vote where it feels that very important interests are at stake. But this is not something that can be rigidly defined. What a State perceives to be important interests at any particular time depends on all sorts of factors, especially political views at home.
Another matter that was raised by a number of hon. Members, including the hon. Members for Dorset, West (Mr. Spicer), Mid-Oxon and Banbury, is the implications of enlargement for Turkey. Obviously the Turks are concerned about the economic and political advantages that Greece may gain vis-à-vis Turkey.
On the economic side, the Turks have said that they wish to revise their association agreement with the EEC. There is no reason for the Greek accession to affect consideration of this end, on the political side, Greek accession need not and should not have any negative impact on the Community's relations with Turkey. Ways will have to be found of ensuring that a mutually satisfactory relationship is maintained after enlargement, and that is already under substantial consideration with our partners.
My hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East explained what he perceived as the political disadvantages in enlargement and raised some of the problems that undoubtedly exist. The nine member States have expressed themselves in favour of enlargement. Our partners accept, as we do, the overriding political argument in favour of accepting the applications of the three applicant countries.
There is, of course, concern about the problems and potential costs that will be caused by enlargement. These anxieties vary in emphasis from country to country. For example, some member States are worried that expansion from nine to 12 will lead to a further weakening of the Community. I shall have something to say about that later. Others are concerned about the competition that their agriculture will have to face from the new members.
These are points that will obviously have to be thrashed out in individual negotiations. The overriding consideraation is that this thrashing out will occur against a background belief that enlargement is crucially important in order to buttress the newly established democracies in Southern Europe.
As has been said time and again in the debate, that political consideration is one which the vast majority of hon. Members and, I believe, people outside will accept as being of overriding importance and fundamental significance.

Mr. Budgen: Will the Minister give way?

Mr. Tomlinson: No. I shall not give way at this stage because a number of important questions were asked by hon. Members to which I wish to reply.
My hon. Friend the Member for Swansea, East also asked about the sensitive points that he thinks will emerge during the negotiations with the three applicant countries. It is clear that the negotiations will be between the Community as a whole and the individual applicant States.
As the Community position is formulated on various aspects of the negotiations, we shall ensure that full regard is taken of British interests. We shall want to examine closely the implications of the terms offered to the applicant States in all areas. The transitional arrangements, which will cover a period of several years, will need to strike a balance between obligations and benefits for existing member States and applicants.
My hon. Friend the Member for Farnworth (Mr. Roper) and the hon. Member for Moray and Nairn (Mrs. Ewing) asked about textiles. A voluntary undertaking has been given by the Greek textile industry to respect certain levels for EEC member States in 1978. Although no agreement has been reached with Spain and Portugal on voluntary restraint, their Governments have been informed of levels that should not be exceeded. At the Council of Ministers' meeting last December the EEC Commission undertook to ensure that these limits are observed, and the level of imports is being closely monitored and details of categories which are causing concern are reported to the Commission.
The important subject of Portugal was raised by the right hon. Member for Devon, North, the hon. Member for Mid-Oxon and my hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South. They all asked whether the IMF was doing enough on Portugal. I understand that negotiations with the IMF are well advanced, and I hope that they will be brought to a successful conclusion soon. The conclusion of the negotiations will not unlock more Community aid funds, but it will release funds which some Community countries have said they are ready to provide. The United Kingdom has already released its funds under this multilateral facility in advance of agreement, and I believe that our position should be abundantly clear from that action.
The Community, as such, has already provided about £275 million worth of


loans since 1974, and it may provide more in the future. This remains to be decided. It is clearly one of the matters raised in the fresco, and no doubt proposals will come forward in due course.
As for the United Kingdom, we have already provided, or undertaken to provide, over £5 million since 1974, as well as putting up $20 million as our share of the multilateral facility. In addition, there is a considerable United Kingdom input via the World Bank, and we are keeping the situation under review in terms of further aid.
My hon. Friend the Member for Newham, South mentioned the subject of institutional development. There are always choices to be made in that respect, and the need to maintain efficiency and cohesion, limit bureaucracy, and ensure democratic debate and a full hearing for national interests is very much with us today in a Community of Nine. We are already exploring ways of speeding up the machinery by trimming Council agendas, by giving Coreper a greater role in preparing decisions and many of the matters referred to by my hon. Friend the Minister of State in his opening remarks.
Our objectives will not change in a Community of Twelve. I accept that new problems may arise, but since institutions are not an end in themselves but must reflect the actual needs of the Community, these problems will very much depend on the general terms for enlargement. Put crudely, where States are content with policies, I do not believe that they will be particularly obstructive on procedures.
The hon. Member for Moray and Nairn mentioned the implications of enlargement for economic and monetary union. Economic and monetary union is a long-term ideal which will not of itself solve our present problems in the Community. The most immediate and pressing task confronting all member States is to decide on common action on growth, currency stability, energy, trade and flows of capital. Considerable headway was made at the European Council meeting in Copenhagen on 7th and 8th April in identifying the problems and establishing guidelines for a joint assessment of action needed.
We are actively following up these discussions in the Community so that decisions on practical measures can be taken within a common strategy at the July meeting of the European Council which will be followed by the Bonn summit. We must concentrate our efforts on these practical tasks, and a successful solution of those problems will in turn facilitate consideration of the possibilities of economic and monetary union.
The hon. Lady also mentioned the subject of fisheries. The Government's firm line on the basic requirements for a common fisheries policy is well known, as are our views on the conservation of fish stocks. The Spanish fishing industry is the largest in Western Europe. The accession of Spain to the Community would place an immense new strain on fish stocks, which are already overexploited, unless the present common fisheries policy were amended along the lines consistently pursued by Her Majesty's Government. These are the lines that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food will be taking in Brussels, as he already has been.
The hon. Member for Banbury seemed impatient that I should turn to the question of Gibraltar. I say to him that, as my hon. Friend the Minister of State said in opening the debate, the British Government have welcomed the Spanish application to join the EEC but have expressly not linked this to progress over Gibraltar. However, we have made it clear that we look to Spain for a readiness to co-operate in the search for solutions to the Gibraltar problem. As Spain moves closer to the rest of Europe, exemplified by her accession to the Council of Europe in 1977, it should be possible as between partners and friends to resolve these questions.

Mr. Marten: Should not the Spanish show a bit of good intention right now? The Government might even suggest to them that before they open negotiations they should open the frontier as a gesture of good will and sincerity, to show that they really mean that joining the Community is important to them.

Mr. Tomlinson: I welcome gestures of good will and good intention, from whatever source they come. I am sure that such a gesture would be welcome.

Mr. Marten: Then suggest it.

Mr. Tomlinson: My hon. Friend the Minister of State has made it quite clear that we believe that as Spain moves closer to the rest of Europe it should be possible to resolve these questions.
In the last few minutes I want to turn to an important theme that has run through this debate. A number of hon. Members have referred to the philosophy behind enlargement. Some clearly see enlargement as a chance to water down the Community. The Government's position should be quite clear by now. Britain is not and never has been committed to federalist goals or to rigid models for economic and monetary union, in the absence of genuine economic convergence. But we do not see the Community as static. Indeed, we have many ideas for developing it. It may be that after enlargement, development will have to be worked at more selectively, and our energies concentrated on deepening Community co-operation in particular areas. But to see this approach as a devious attempt to undermine the Community, using enlargement as a front, is a patent and unreasonable distortion.
We have said that after enlargement we should be able to guard against an over-bureaucratised Community. This is an aim to which we have been committed ever since we acceded. We want methods of decision-taking which will be effective, as economic of time as possible at the highest levels, representative, and based on proper standards of openness and

information. We shall pursue these aims in the context of enlargement as we pursue them in all other contexts.
This approach is far more likely to give us the flexibility and sensitivity needed for a healthy Community than is the doctrinaire application of purely procedural rules. The Twelve will be different from the Nine, and anyone who tries to force the Twelve into the mould of the Six will fail.
We have had a very useful debate. Perhaps the curtailment of time has assisted it, in the sense that every hon. Member has been more concise in making his or her observations.
There are clearly economic difficulties for the applicant countries, for the individual States of the Nine and for the Nine as a body, but I join the many other hon. Members who have expressed a firm belief that we must go ahead to enlargement to a Community of Twelve as a demonstration of our political faith in the future of a wider democratic Europe and as our gesture of solidarity in buttressing the important fledgling or re-emerging democracies of Southern Europe.
In that task, we shall be failing not only ourselves but the future of European democracy unless we proceed with all due speed to make sure that as quickly as possible we have a Community of 12 member States.

Mr. Frank R. White: I beg to ask leave to withdraw the motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

EUROPEAN COMMUNITY (COMMERCIAL AGENTS)

10.0 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for Trade (Mr. Michael Meacher): I beg to move,
That this House takes note of Commission Document No. R/3/77 on Commercial Agents.
The Commission document is a proposal for a Council directive to co-ordinate the laws of the member States relating to self-employed commercial agents.
I should explain that "commercial agents" is a concept recognised and provided for in Continental legal codes, but they are not identified or specially provided for in our law. They are, broadly, people and firms that carry out the business of what in the United Kingdom we would probably call a manufacturer's agent, or with more precision, a manufacturer's selling agent. They are engaged by a principal to sell his goods on his behalf and in his name and generally remunerated by the payment of a commission. Such agents are widely used in international trade, particularly by small firms and when the size of the market does not justify a firm setting up its own sales network. They are also used in internal trade. Some agencies are handled by major international business houses, but it is thought that well over 50 per cent. of agents are individuals or proprietors of very small concerns. Estimates suggest a total of about 20,000 in the United Kingdom.
The proposal is based on Articles 57 and 100 of the treaty. It has two main objectives. One is to harmonise the commercial agency laws of the member States. Differences between these laws are, in the Commission's view, detrimental to the functioning of the Common Market, affecting conditions of competition and creating legal uncertainties. The other objective is to strengthen the position of the commercial agent, who is assumed to be the weaker party in negotiating with his principal. The proposal does this by setting out detailed, mandatory rules, regulating the main aspects of the contract between them.
I shall not take up the time of the House by going in detail over the contents

of the proposed directive which are surveyed both in the explanatory memorandum and in the Select Committee's report. In brief, the proposed directive is derived from the provisions of the German commercial legal code, but it is, in general, both more comprehensive and more protective to the agent that the existing legal provisions in the individual member States. For the United Kingdom such legislation would be highly novel both in form and content.
Four main issues can, I think, be identified as arising from the proposal. The first is the case, in principle, for a directive on this issue. The second is the question of the implications for the structure of our law of agency. Third, the drafting of the proposed directive is criticised as being inadequate and, arising from this, is the fourth issue, namely that the scope of application of the directive is unclear.
On the first of these questions, hon. Members will see from the report that there are differing opinions—not surprisingly. The manufacturers' agents, represented primarily by the United Commercial Travellers Association section of ASTMS—UCTA—and the Manufacturers' Agents' Association, have long pressed for protection of the sort that the Commission wishes to introduce and welcome and strongly support the proposal. Their principals, represented by such organisations as the CBI and the Association of British Chambers of Commerce are unimpressed by the Commission's arguments and query the basic premise that the agent is in the weaker bargaining position. The regard the detail and complexity of the proposed directive as removing a useful measure of existing flexibility and as making insufficient allowance for developments in commercial practice. Although they are unhappy with the proposal, however, I think that I should mention that they have not indicated that they would be unable to live with it and, indeed, they are probably already dealing with provisions of a similar nature when they use agents on the Continent, although probably not as comprehensive as those proposed here.
Against this we have to set the case of the manufacturers' agents. They have put forward to us specific examples of


the problems faced by the smaller agent—agents who have been unable to obtain written confirmation of the terms of their contracts, with consequent difficulties and disagreements over rates and payments of commission or notice of termination. They have complained that agents can be used to build up sales in an unpromising market and then put aside, without compensation, when the business has reached a level where the principal can set up his own sales organisation.
The absence of a legal requirement for a formal contract incorporating basic safeguards has, they feel, led to uncertainty and insecurity for a group of people who are doing a useful and valuable job and who deserve better treatment. They point out that this view has been recognised in the commercial agency laws or most other European countries. The present proposal, in whose formulation their international representative bodies have played a significant part, contains the provisions which they regard as necessary for establishing a reasonable level of security for their members.
I turn now to the legal issues arising from the present proposal. They spring partly from the implications of introducing codified Continental forms into a part of our law of agency, partly from the novelty of some of the provisions, and partly because of the drafting and uncertain coverage of the proposal.
The drafting of the proposal has been widely criticised. It gives rise not only to legal objections, but also to considerable uncertainty as to what the Commission is trying to do in detail, and where the Commission has explained what it is trying to do, it is not clear that the text will always achieve it. If the principle of a directive on this subject is to be accepted, there would appear to be a substantial amount of drafting work to be done if the present text is to be used as a basis.
The fourth issue, which has been the basis of much of the critical comment we have received, is the apparently very broad coverage of the directive. This can be interpreted as extending well beyond manufacturers' selling agents to include agencies involved in the buying of goods and a wide range of service agencies, possibly including, in certain circum-

stances, solicitors, estate agents and stockbrokers. This appears primarily to arise from inadequacies of definition.
Even the exemptions are not free from this criticism. As the Select Committee says in its report, the tenor of the proposal
as a whole is directed to a much narrower concept of a commerial agent".
Organisations representing both agents and principals involved in other fields of agency are anxious about the possible application of any directive to their activities. They do not consider the Commission's proposals are intended or designed to apply to them, and they wish to be either clearly excluded from its scope or for radical changes to be made in the provisions.
One particular problem is the mail order agent—generally a housewife operating from home and selling goods from a catalogue. There are some 3 million or 4 million such part-time agents in the United Kingdom. Here, the Commission has made an attempt to allow them to be excluded from some of the provisions of the directive, but it is doubtful how effective this would be, and the Mail Order Traders' Association considers that it would be impossible to apply the proposed directive to its members' use of agents.
I think that it will be agreed from what I have said that there are obviously major shortcomings in the definition which would have to be cleared up should it be decided to go ahead with a directive on this topic.
These, then, are the issues to be dealt with by the member States when the proposal comes to be considered in the Council working party, and I should remind hon. Members that, although proposals for Community legislation on these questions have been under discussion within the EEC since well before its enlargement, the working party will be the first opportunity we shall have had to discuss the topic of other member States à neuf.
When these discussions will start, I cannot yet say. The Economic and Social Committee has already advised in favour of a directive along the lines suggested by the Commission, but the European Parliament has not yet given its view and the


proposal will not be referred to a Council working party before the report from the Parliament has been received.
As far as the Government's attitude is concerned, we have already indicated in another place—and this has been noted by the Select Committee—that, in view of the conflicting and often critical reactions to the proposal in the United Kingdom, we are reserving our position until there has been an opportunity to explore with the other member States in the Council working party the value of the directive on this topic.
In the light of these discussions we shall be in a better position to decide on the practical benefits of such an instrument. If these were found to be worth while, we could take a view whether the form and content of the directive as proposed by the Commission are those most appropriate to meet the needs which it has identified. It may well be that something with narrower and more explicit definitions, yet with broader provisions, should be sought.
The Select Committee urged that this proposal should be considered by the House before our policy was finalised, and I am glad that an opportunity for an early debate has arisen tonight. We are anxious to have the views of the House, and I assure hon. Members that the Government will take particular notice of what they have to say on this deailed and complex document.

10.10 p.m.

Mr. Charles Fletcher-Cooke: The House will, I am sure, realise that this directive, if it is adopted, will in almost all its articles be mandatory on all member States. That will mean that the whole of our law of commercial agency will have to be rewritten in detail on what is fundamentally a German basis.
The draftsmen have taken the German code and tightened it up in various forms, as the Minister said, but it is wholly different—I nearly used the pejorative or disparaging word "alien"—from the concepts of the common law concerning commercial agency. We shall not be allowed, as the draft is at present, to opt out of almost any of its provisions.
It covers the most enormous field of activity. It does not affect only selling agents. In spite of criticisms and attempts in the Legal Committee of the European

Parliament to get it amended—and such amendments were bitterly resisted by the Commission's representative—it covers also theatrical agents, estate agents, travel agents, literary agents and pop group agents. These are all people who are supposed to be able to make or break their so-called principals in their careers. It is said in another breath that these agents are in a poor and weak bargaining position, unable to stand up to their principals, although the vast majority of those included in the present definition are far stronger than their principals.
The straitjacket of the proposals is quite remarkable. For some reason which I do not understand—I shall take only two or three examples—the Commission seems to dislike very much the well-established practice of the del credere agent. The del credere agent—I refer to Article 21—is a commercial agent who guarantees the solvency and the performance of the third party whom he introduces. He guarantees payment himself. It has been a well-known practice in the United Kingdom over many centuries. It is not very popular on the Continent, because the same reputations for honesty have not always existed there.
The del credere agency system is of enormous benefit commercially, but it is to be "cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd" in the most extraordinary way, and we cannot opt out of that. But what is the purpose of that sort of harmonisation? The del credere agency system, as at present constituted, cannot possibly cause any sort of distortion of competition. It is so minimal and marginal as not to be a reality in that sense. We have here an example, throughout this type of directive, of a desire to produce a uniformity of law which is, I think, in the wrong direction.
It seems to me that the del credere system is an excellent one, and that if there is to be uniformity it should be uniformity in favour of the British system rather than the German system. I should be quite happy with the present variety. On the whole, I think that this country gets commercial advantage from the fact that agents here are prepared to undertake long-term del credere positions even on the telephone, without any signature or any written evidence. Under Article 21 that will no longer be allowed, because the limitations require the most tremendous paraphernalia.


Every individual transaction must be signed, be in writing and so on. It cannot be right that there should be that straitjacket imposed upon us.
There are other things. Article 9 states that commercial agents shall have
authority to negotiate commercial transactions for account of the principal".
That rather goes without saying. It also states that he shall have authority to conclude agreementts in respect thereof only where the principal empowers him to do so. That seems to strike at the doctrine of ostensible authority—a well-known doctrine in the English law of agency by which, if an agent does conclude an agreement for which he has no existing authority, his principal may well be bound subsequently if, in fact, he has held himself out as having the authority and the doctrine of ostensible authority applies.
That may or may not be a desirable state of affairs. But it is the sort of state of affairs to which each individual country's law ought to apply its own traditional rules, even if they vary. There again, there can be no question of the distortion of competition or the distortion of the European market.
I only instance those two examples to show the rigid detail with which this class of directive is drafted and the tenacity with which the Commission guards and preserves its drafting—certainly in the Legal Committee, which is the committee of the European Parliament that I know.

Mr. John Roper: My understanding of the directive was that it was to provide guidelines within which member States would be able to adapt and develop it as appropriate to their own law. Does the hon. and learned Gentleman agree that this from of mandatory directive is a distortion of what are generally accepted to be the Community's law-making processes?

Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: I would agree entirely with the hon. Gentleman. I think this is a distortion. I think that the tenacity with which the Commission defends it is even more sinister than the development itself.
The theory upon which this directive is based is that the agent is a poor, weak fellow and needs a great deal of protection. It may be—although one makes no

admissions about this—that with regard to goodwill, remuneration, terminal payments and things like that, the law should be altered in this country. I am not denying that there is perhaps a case for that. If it is to be altered there is no particular reason why it should not be altered in conformity with the spirit of this directive.
But for the rest of the law of agency to be pushed out in this detail is, to my mind, quite intolerable. Even with regard to the small, weak man with only one principal—which is the example always given by the Commission—I have grave doubts about that. In the Legal Committee of the European Parliament we knocked out Article 22—it may come back again—which equates the position of the self-employed agent with the employee in the case of bankruptcy. That is quite wrong. As hon. Members know, in a winding up or bankruptcy the employee has very great preference over trade creditors and people of that sort, and quite rightly so. If the self-employed man is to be equated with his position, it may well be that the self-employed commercial agent gets a preference in the liquidation of a principal, which defeats the claim of another self-employed trade creditor who may be a much smaller man than he is.
Furthermore, if the self-employed small man with only one principal—which is always held up to us as the object to be protected—is equated with the employee, it considerably dilutes, or may do so, the employee's privilege. There will be less for the proper employee. If there is a small man who has only one principal, why is he not an employee in the first place? Everyone knows that the reason is perfectly simple. It is that for tax purposes it suits him to be self-employed, as often as not, and good luck to him—but he cannot have it both ways. That is the strongest objection.
I know that I have been much attacked by ASTMS, or whatever the union is in this matter, but that is the reason why, in my amendment, we knocked out Article 22. It seemed to me that the self-employed agent was trying to have it both ways. Far be it from me, from this Box, to cast any slur of any sort upon the self-employed. Nevertheless, when the self-employed refuse to take the kicks as well as the ha'pence, when they want to have


all the privileges of the self-employed and all the privileges of the employee, I am bound to say that my enthusiasm for their cause is moderated.

Mr. Ron Thomas: I have listened as closely as I can to what the hon. and learned Member has said. Is it not the case that really all the dice are loaded in favour of the principal, and that, for example, an agent can become responsible for the bad debts of a principal in an insolvency or bankruptcy situation?

Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: He cannot become responsible for the principal's debts, but his own claims may be deferred to those of the employees and, indeed, may be reduced because he is at present a trade creditor to the other trade creditors. The idea of his being preferred into the privileged position of an employee is what Article 22 suggested, which we, in the Legal Committee—although this is not final—have knocked out, and with the support of the Socialist Group in the European Parliament. It is the only occasion on which the Socialist Group voted in favour of the reduction of the mandatory qualities of this directive. In all other matters it has preserved the full straitjacket quality of this directive in its votes.
Therefore, I view this directive with a good deal of sadness. I say sadness because, as is well known, I think, I am a supporter of the directives and regulations which seek to prevent distortion of competition within the Community. But when the articles, particularly Article 100, are misused, as I think Article 100 is, for this purpose, for a harmonisation for harmonisation's sake, for a destruction of legal principles upon which the commercial life of the United Kingdom has been based for many years, I view such developments in the Commission and in the Community with a good deal of sorrow.

10.24 p.m.

Mr. Julius Silverman: I hope that the Government will support the broad principles of this directive. In saying that I am not dissenting from some of the criticisms made of the directive itself.
As the Minister has said, this matter came before the Select Committee on European Legislation. We heard evidence from the Board of Trade. We had evidence also from the UCTA section of ASTMS and written evidence from the Manufacturers' Agents Association in favour of the directive. We had evidence from the Confederation of British Industry against the directive. We had evidence from the Association of British Chambers of Commerce, which took a rather intermediate line and suggested that something was necessary to protect agents but not this particular directive. We also had evidence from the Mail Order Traders Association, which was anxious, as the Minister said, that it should be excluded. We received a letter from that association today. Articles 2 and 4 make it reasonably clear, as far as anything is clear in the directive, that the Mail Order Traders Association would not be included.
In the light of these views the Select Committee felt that there was no purpose in taking any other verbal evidence. It decided, as it was bound to do, that the matter was important, controversial and necessitated debate on the Floor of the House. Therefore, it has come to the Chamber for debate.
I am not an enthusiast for harmonisation by the Community and I ask whether the directive is necessary in general terms. Is it necessary to protect commercial agents or manufacturers' agents, call them what we will? We have had the evidence of both the UCTA Section of the ASTMS and the manufacturers' agents, which say clearly that it is. They defined some of the problems that are faced. They referred to commission that is earned, overdue and unpaid, which is not uncommon. I do not say that it is general but it is not uncommon among a significant minority of principals. There is the refusal of principals to reduce the contract of agency to writing, or inadequate written contracts. I understand that almost 50 per cent. of agents do not have written agreements. Therefore, it is difficult for them to enforce any contract in a court of law.

Mr. Ron Thomas: And very expensive.

Mr. Silverman: Yes, and expensive. There are principals who change


the terms of an agency agreement in an arbitrary manner—for example, altering the percentage of commission payment and stoppage of an agent's retainer. There is unsatisfactorily defined territory and territory changes. There is the taking as "house accounts" those accounts that agents have built up, often with no compensatory payments for doing so. There is no goodwill compensation on termination of agency, and inadequate notice of arbitrary termination of agency. Quite often termination takes place with only one month's notice after several years. I have had experience in the courts of agents who have built up a considerable goodwill and who have been fired by their principal, who inherits the goodwill. There is no compensation and no redress because the matter is not able to be dealt with under the terms of the contract or else there is no written contract.
There are problems that arise from the insolvency and winding up of principals. Agents are made responsible for bad debts, for example. The hon. and learned Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke) has said that the del credere agent is in a different position, but it often happens that agents are made responsible for bad debts who are not in business as del crèdere agents.
There is no doubt that there is plenty of evidence to show that these evils exist. That has been recognised by other countries. They have taken the view that it is not merely an EEC matter and of importance only to members of the EEC. Germany was the first country to introduce such a law. I understand that French protection goes further than the directive. There is similar legislation in Italy and the Benelux countries. Such legislation is not confined by any means to Community member States. I understand that there is legislation in Austria, Finland, Norway, Sweden and other countries that protects the agent. That is because it is recognised that he is in a weaker position.
The hon. and learned Gentleman has questioned that weakness. He referred to the number of agents who deal with one principal. I am told that about 60 per cent. of British agents—I am not including theatrical agents, insurance agents who are excluded under the draft directive, or mail order traders—have one

principal. This applies to people who are mainly selling agents for manufacturers' goods. About 60 per cent. of them have one principal, or a few may do just a little business apart from that which they do for one principal upon whom they are dependent. If they lose their agency or their principal goes out of business, they are finished.
There is no doubt that they are in a weak position and they are conscious of their weakness. The majority of companies and firms treat them fairly. But the object of the directive—I shall not say whether it achieves it correctly—is that the principle of fairness and some kind of code of conduct should apply generally.

Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: I agree with the hon. Gentleman on the question of compensation for what in another sphere is called unjust dismissal, or something on those lines, although not in the case of the self-employed, and that goodwill should be preserved. I think that in those areas there are legitimate causes for complaint in the present state of our law and that on that matter the hon. Gentleman will find unanimity.

Mr. Silverman: The point is that in the great majority of cases the agent is in a weak bargaining position. I know that the objection of the Law Commission, of the House of Lords Committee which considered this matter and of the CBI is that this interferes with the freedom of contract. The freedom of contract is important, but it is not a fetish that we must always continue to worship.
When I studied law, I read Dicey's constitutional law. He was the great man on constitutional law. He set out the principles of the historical development of the law from "status to contract"; that is, from fixed relationships to relationships decided by free contract between free people. That sounded very nice. The history of the law in this country and in other countries has been precisely the opposite to that.
In employment it used to be called master and servant. There is now a vast body of legislation, introduced by Governments of both major parties, to protect the employee because of his weak bargaining position. There is a body of law on landlord and tenant to protect the tenant against the bad landlord. More


recently we have had consumer legislation to protect the consumer against the unfair and immoral practices of certain unscrupulous dealers.
After all, freedom of contract can be applied only where the relations between the parties are equal and both have equal strength. I suggest that in this instance they do not have equal strength. Therefore, these people, and the unions representing them, feel that they should have legislative protection. I refer to legislative protection for a man who in many instances is no stronger in his bargaining power than an employee. He has not, as the hon. and learned Gentleman said, always chosen to be in that position rather than to be an employee. Frequently it suits the manufacturer to have an agent who is paid upon a commission basis rather than to have an employee to whom he has the responsibilities of an employer. Therefore, it is wrong to say that these people have chosen to be what they are and that they must take the rough with the smooth. I think that they are entitled, at any rate, to some of the protection accorded to employees because they are in fact quasi-employees.
I agree with the Minister and the hon. and learned Member for Darwen that much of the draftsmanship in the directive is obscure, imprecise and uncertain. A major job of draftsmanship and negotiation will have to be done. But one must bear in mind that the ensuing legislation must be passed by this Parliament, in our own terms. Then we can consider further the question of precision and certainty.
These people serve a useful purpose in the Community. In may cases they are suffering hardship and legal injustice because of the inadequacy of the present law. Some method of protecting them should be found and we should deal with the main matters about which they complain.
I do not support every detail of the directive. It is imprecise in the definition of a commercial agent. But some leglislation is necessary, irrespective of the Common Market or harmonisation. The precise form of legislation will be negotiated in the Common Market organisations. This deserves support. I hope that the Government will support such legislation in principle. I hope that

they will work out in negotiations the principles around which the legislation can be made practicable, just and fair to both sides.

10.37 p.m.

Sir Stephen McAdden: Experience has taught me that when an hon. Member says that he will make a brief speech he rarely does so. I shall make a brief speech. I pay tribute to the hon. Member for Farnworth (Mr. Roper) and his Committee for their excellent report. On page 10 of the House of Commons Sixth Report from the Select Committee on European Legislation. &c. it is said in trenchant terms:
From the view of the evidence summarised above, the Committee conclude that bodies representing the principals consider the draft Directive one-sided, detrimental to the interests of their members, unnecessary and in any case unworkable, while bodies representing commercial agents see it as offering protection to members whose business relationships are beset by uncertainty and insecurity …
This strong conflict of opinion, together with the trenchant criticism by the Law Commission leave the Committee with no choice but to recommend the draft Directive for further consideration by the House … at an early date; and, in their view, the earlier the date, the better.
I am glad that we are considering this today.
I refer to only one aspect of this matter—that of mail order traders. The hon. Member for Farnworth will know better than most that in the early days of this century working-class people bought their clothes through the tally man or club man. He used to come round each week and collect 3d or 6d to assist the working-class family to clothe their children.
There has been an explosion since then. Mail order traders have developed. They carry on the task of providing the working-class and others with clothing which can be selected from catalogues which are produced twice a year in order to carry on this pretty extensive business, which provides 13 million people, or probably more, with the opportunity to replenish their household stocks.
Total sales in 1976 by members of the Mail Order Traders Association were about £1,100 million, a vast trade. That was accomplished by about 4 million agents. They are not highly trained commercial people, but ordinary working-class housewives whose customers derive


mainly from their immediate families and neighbours. Their average turnover was about £250 a year, of which they made a modest commission of £25. That may not be wealth beyond the dreams of avarice, but it represents a modest contribution to their economic circumstances.
Why should this highly personal and domestic organisation of sales be constricted into these regulations which are meant to apply to extensive businesses? Does anyone seriously pretend that the local agent with a £250 turnover is running a substantial business which must come within the directive? That is utter nonsense. While we might appreciate the principle of harmonisation on certain matters, we must remember that we have here an individualistic organisation which provides an enjoyable service.
I am told that the credit prices are, with very few exceptions, the same as the cash prices. All goods are sold with an unconditional guarantee. A directive which seeks to harmonise the law relating to self-employed agents is much too gigantic an instrument to operate in this limited sphere.
I hope, therefore, that the Minister will consider the arguments advanced by the mail order traders in favour of their exclusion from the directive. Some means of excluding them should be found—if not in the way that they advocate, then in some other way. I hope that the Minister will seriously consider the representations that have been made to him and will afford relief to these organisations.

Mr. Silverman: Will the hon. Gentleman consider two points? Even as drafted I do not think that the directive is likely to include mail order traders, but I agree that it should be made clear that that is the case.
I am sure that the hon. Gentleman did not intend to mislead the House with his quotation. The quotation that he made was not the view of the Committee but was a quotation from the Law Commission. In what I considered to be a very one-sided report, the Commission made a strong attack on the directive. Without necessarily accepting the Commission's view, the Committee said that if such views existed, clearly the matter should be debated by the House.

Sir S. McAdden: I do not want to delay the House any further. If the hon. Member assures me that mail order houses are excluded and the Minister confirms this, I shall be very happy.

10.46 p.m.

Mr. John Roper: I want to return later to the question of the Mail Order Traders' Association because it is obviously important. But first of all I wish to deal with other areas of importance.
The Confederation of British Industry said in evidence to the Select Committee:
The draft directive is another example of new law being made in the guise of harmonisation.
It may well be that one of the things we expect from the EEC is that on some occasions, when there is an attempt to harmonise the law, some member States will have inadequate law—as appears to be the case with the United Kingdom in this instance. In such cases the creation of new law will be necessary in those member States. The harmonisation process will mean introducing into our legal system a new area of law. That is why we are in difficulty.
As the hon. Member for Southend, East (Sir S. McAdden) said, the Select Committee, in taking evidence, found that, on the one hand, the principals were critical of the directive while, on the other, those who represented the commercial agents saw considerable advantages in it. We were not attempting in the Select Committee to strike a balance between the two interests. This is a matter for the House, not the Select Committee.
We were also concerned about the points made by the Law Commission. I quote what may be a one-sided remark, but there can be no doubt that the Law Commission's report must be taken seriously. It said of this directive:
Its defects of substance, presentation and drafting are such that it fails even to provide a basis for negotiation.
That is very strong criticism from the Law Commission about an EEC directive, and it was provoked by the possibility of increased uncertainty in English law, which might arise from the introduction of this directive.
We are faced with the rather peculiar nature of this directive. The problem is that the term "commercial agent" has no precise connotation in English law as


it stands. It was said to us by the representatives of the Lord Chancellor's Department who came before the Select Committee that the introduction of this directive into English law would probably increase uncertainty in certain circumstances, rather than reduce it. Therefore, we were particularly concerned that Community law would have this effect on our legal system, as distinct from the arguments about whether it is desirable for commercial agents.
We are delighted that the Government have given us an opportunity to discuss this matter. We feel very strongly that in the Community's discussions considerable attempts are made to put it into a format compatible with the rest of British law. Otherwise we will have a whole series of difficulties. Although we might deal with very real problems for commercial agents, we might create certain other considerable legal problems going much wider than that. It was thought that it was by no means clear that the directive would not apply to travel agents, literary and theatrical agents, stockbrokers and forwarding agents. Clearly the tenor of the directive is intended to cover a much narrower range.
The Mail Order Traders' Association has a particular problem because the directive appeared to its legal advisers to include mail order traders' agents—the housewives who do this work on a part-time basis—when clearly this was not the original intention of the Commission in drafting the directive. The problem may arise because outside the United Kingdom the concept of the mail order trader is not known and therefore the Commission was not aware of our problems.

Mr. Ron Thomas: Does my hon. Friend agree that Article 4 probably deals with this matter? It says:
It is left to the member States to decide whether the directive is to apply in whole or in part to persons who carry on business as commercial agents but by way of secondary activity only".

Mr. Roper: One of the problems is whether, when a housewife has only one employment, as a mail order agent, that would be a secondary activity. This is the ambiguity of the directive which is causing considerable concern to the Mail Order Traders' Association. A solicitor's work as a commercial agent would be a

secondary activity, but it might be construed that the part-time mail order work of a housewife with no other gainful employment was her primary activity rather than her secondary activity. But I do not wish to get involved further in the complexities of women's liberation.
I return to the question of the quasi-direct applicability of directives. The Select Committee was concerned about this and I asked the representative of the Lord Chancellor about this problem. He replied:
In a sense this is another of the difficulties we see because it"—
that is the directive—
contains a degree of detail which makes it very difficult to implement it other than by using its language or something very close to its language. It is in a sense a directive drafted in the terms of a regulation.
It is this character of a directive that becomes virtually mandatory and does not give freedom to member States to adapt and develop within the general context of their own law which concerned us particularly. I asked the Lord Chancellor's Department why it thought the Commission was moving in this direction. The reply was:
They are drafting with an increasing degree of detail possibly because the member States have expressed some dissatisfaction with diverse interpretation of directives that were not so detailed.
That is one possible interpretation. There are others. It may be that the Commission is dissatisfied with the way in which some member States have acted on rather more loosely drafted directives.
There are here important and fundamental questions about Community law and about the nature and concept of a directive within Community law. They require much more fundamental examination than can be done solely on the example of this instrument, though I hope that the Minister will bring it to the attention of the Lord Chancellor and other Law Officers because the House wants this matter to be sorted out with a great deal more clarity.
I hope that we shall make satisfactory progress. I share with my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Silverman) the concern that there should be a proper code of law dealing with commercial agents, but I do not think that the directive as drafted is the ideal way to achieve that end.
I hope that the Minister and his officials will be able in the working group to make considerable changes to these proposals. However, if what we have heard from the hon. and learned Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke) about the obstinacy of the Commission is anything to go by, we may be charging them with a difficult task. But the House will want to see this instrument in its revised form so that we may give our opinion on the matter when it comes before us in a significantly changed form, and before it finally goes to the Council of Ministers for approval.

10.56 p.m.

Mr. Roger Moate: There are two parliamentary virtues to which I do not normally lay claim. One is humility and the other is brevity. But faced with a complex legal document, in the presence of some well-trained legal minds, I shall take refuge in both. This is a highly complex matter, and the possible introduction of complex statute law of this kind in an area which has previously largely been dealt with by the common law is a highly unsatisfactory way of proceeding. In a thinly attended House, despite some excellent work carried out by the Select Committee, this hardly seems to be the best way to proceed. With the best will in the world, it is hard to grasp the full and intricate details of a complex document of this kind.
The draft directive is based on two principles, one of which is that the activities of commercial agents
play a very important part in interpenetration of markets and for that reason in the growth of intra-Community trade".
The other principle is that commercial agents need protection because they are commercially weak vis-à-vis their principles.
These are two principles which to a certain extent conflict. If these agents represent such a powerful economic force, I find it hard to believe that as a generality they are as commercially weak as has been suggested in this debate. I emphasise "as a generality" because I have no doubt that there are exceptions. I find it hard to accept that the differences in the legal sphere in individual members of the Community pose a major problem and that this represents a powerful and significant barrier to intra-Community trade.
It is incumbent on those who support this draft directive, or even upon the Commission, to prove that this is a barrier to trade. If it is not a barrier to international trade, I do not feel we need to embark upon this significant course of changing the whole basis of agency law in the United Kingdom.
Despite the points made by the hon. Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Silverman) about the problems faced by certain commercial agents, we have had no specific example of how intra-Community trade is hindered in any way by these differences in legal rules. If there is no such evidence, surely we should be looking not to EEC directives, which in this case will have a quasi-mandatory effect, but to our own law to consider whether there are any areas where we should be taking certain steps to protect certain individuals who are at a disadvantage.
I believe that the case has not been made out by the Community for a draft directive with this wide-ranging effect and great significance. Evidence should be put before the House that laws of this kind are necessary. There is nothing in the draft directive to persuade us that we should take into consideration a proposal of this kind.
I turn to the question of the commercial weakness of the agent. The vast majority of agents choose to be commercial agents and prefer to have the commercial freedom of being an agent without being shackled by the detailed contractual terms that migh be imposed upon them if the draft directive were to come into force.
As I understand it, the directive could well apply to people such as selling agents, estate agents, pop group agents and theatrical agents. I have not often heard it suggested that the estate agent is commercially weak vis-à-vis his principal. I have not often heard it suggested that the pop artists's agent is commercially weak vis-à-vis his principals. We are generally talking about a smaller number of commercial agents. I accept that there might be cases involving a small number of individuals, but no one from my constituency has ever written to me complaining that he has been badly treated by his principal, though there might be such people. Their contract could be terminated unfairly, commissions might not


be paid to them, they might receive no goodwill payment on the termination of their contract. I accept that that could happen.

Mr. Silverman: It does.

Mr. Moate: I very much respected the hon. Gentleman's speech. He advanced concrete examples, which are often lacking in these theoretical debates on EEC matters. He gave solid examples, and that is important.
Perhaps there are points that we should consider in terms of United Kingdom law, but I do not accept that simply because some commercial agents get a bad deal we should change the whole basis of United Kingdom agency law as proposed. Nor do I accept that we should therefore apply the agency changes to the whole wide-ranging field of all the other principals who are by no means in a weak position; they are in a strong position.
But, pursuing the hon. Gentleman's point, I wonder whether the organisation which presumably made representations to him is really speaking in the long-term interests of its members. Presumably it is in the interests of the manufacturer and many agents that there is a great deal of flexibility and freedom in the arrangements between them. Might not it be detrimental in the long run if one forced them in effect to have proper contracts of engagement, specific commission terms, termination agreements and the like? Would not many organisations say "It is far better to have an employee rather than this flexible arrangement with an agent"?
I suspect that the net result would be that the agent would lose, because there would be fewer agency agreements available, and that the consumers would lose, because there would be less choice for them to buy from a variety of agents. That point has been well made by the discussion we have had about the impact of the draft directive on the mail order business through catalogues, which undoubtedly plays a significant part in consumer sales in this country.
The hon. Gentleman sought to assure us that the draft directive would exclude mail order activities. But the Minister was precise in his statement that as drafted it did not exclude them. Whether

it is intended in principle to exclude them, I do not know, but in practice we have a ministerial statement that it does not do so at present.
This is a wide-ranging proposal, touching on an enormous range of activities that offer a wide choice of outlets to the British consumer and, generally speaking, work satisfactorily. I have heard no evidence to show why we should introduce this major change into our law. Until we have such evidence, we should not go further in this matter. If there are specific cases of injustice, let us make not major changes in the law but minor alterations that will allow us to close the loopholes and then proceed with a greater degree of certainty about what the law is.
In new legislation introduced in this House, as with the directives, we often go for the wide-ranging changes that leave the law in a greater state of uncertainty, steamroller legislation that changes pretty well everything. Then for decades ahead we are not quite sure what the law is. It is far better to close the small loopholes in response to specific evidence of specific injustice than to have wide-ranging changes of this nature. The hon. Member for Erdington has made the case only so far. It goes only a tiny part of the way. There is no overwhelming case for the change that is proposed.

11.5 p.m.

Mr. Ron Thomas: I begin by declaring an interest as a sponsored member of ASTMS. It is well know that it was the United Commercial Travellers Association section, of ASTMS which made certain important references to the often weak position that the agent is in. The hon. Member for Faversham (Mr. Moate) said that he did not accept that in general terms the agent was in a weak position but that, where evidence could be brought to show that agents were in a weak position, he would be happy to see legislation introduced in this country, quite separate from any harmonisation of EEC regulations.
I start from the premise that I very much regret that we have to look to the European Community or to the Commission to try to deal with this problem which is faced by many commercial agents. It the hon. Member for Faversham and others feel that the agents are


not in a weak position, and that is not a very good argument, may I, like my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Silverman), draw attention to some of the points that UCTA members of ASTMS have made?
They have referred to the question of commission earned being overdue and unpaid. Surely it does not matter whether they are in a weak or a strong position. This is not a satisfactory state of affairs. These people have told of principals refusing to reduce contracts of agency to writing. I seem to remember that under the Tory Industrial Relations Act everything had to be put into writing. The Tories were very much in favour of written contracts and goodness knows what. I should not have thought that we could complain about people having a contract in writing.
The agents speak of principals changing the terms of the agency agreement. They talk of goodwill compensation. Many agents may well establish a good-will and then the principal will decide to get rid of that agent, appoint someone else and establish an enlarged area of goodwill. I would have thought that this was likely to happen too often with arbitrary terminations. There is also the question of bad debts, winding-up, insolvency and so on. Whether people are in a weak or a strong position, these matters need to be cleared up. I would prefer to see the Government doing something about them rather than waiting for harmonisation proposals.
Hon. Members have spoken of equality in terms of contracts. I doubt whether we can say that the contracts entered into are between two equal and consenting parties. This is the kind of nonsense we had throughout the nineteenth century to attempt to stop the development of trade unions. Something that the hon. Member for Faversham said reminded me of some of the utterances made during the nineteenth century. He said that the commercial agents may find that in the long run this move is not to their advantage.
There were entrepreneurs in the nineteenth century who said that if they stopped young children from going down the mines or reduced the working day from 16 hours to 12 hours, in the long run it would be to the disadvantage of the workers. It was said that it would

not be to the advantage of workers to combine and form trade unions. We have been told that the Employment Protection Act will not be to the advantage of working people. More and more working people are demanding that they, too, should have these protections. Either they fight for them through their unions, or this Government and other Governments establish them in law. It is wrong that commercial agents should be left out completely. Many of them are in a weak position.
I think, however, that it is a fair criticism that the directive covers far too many areas. But I still thin that Article 4, read right through to the end, makes it clear that mail order establishments, married women and so on will not be covered, although there is a good deal of exploitation in that area. Perhaps that problem should be looked at just as the whole problem of home work is now being looked at by the TUC.
I welcome proposals of this kind, although I can see that there are some contradictory provisions which would need to be ironed out. But I hope that the Labour Government will bring forward some legislation so that the interests of commercial agents may be much more protected than they are at the moment without having to wait for harmonisation or, indeed, any edict from the Commission.

11.11 p.m.

Mr. Meacher: We have had a rather unusual debate in that a number of hon. Members who are not well known for their support of the EEC have found merit in at least supporting the general thrust of the directive, although being critical of many of its detailed points, whilst three Conservative Members who are normally in support of the Common Market have been universally critical.
I think, despite this, that there has been, broad agreement on both sides of the House as to the merits of the directive in terms of its alleged intentions, about its weaknesses, particularly in terms of its over-extended scope and the uncertainty of tis range of application, about the undesirability of over-extending its application, and about the problems of poor drafting.
The hon. and learned Member for Darwen (Mr. Fletcher-Cooke) said that he felt


that the directive represented a very undesirable straitjacket in a number of ways that he indicated. Certainly one way is over the question of definition. It is true that the definition is very broad. In addition to covering manufacturers' selling agents, it could be held to cover a very wide range of commercial intermediary services, including buying agents and many types of agent in the service sector, such as travel agents, freight forwarders; and, in certain of their activities, it might embrace stockbrokers and estate agents. It also appears to apply to the 3 to 4 million housewives mail order agents, although, as I have said, the Commission's intention here is not altogether clear.
There is, additionally, a wide-ranging group of individuals from whom there is no specific legal provision in United Kingdom law who engage in what can be classified as peripheral undertakings, mainly by way of secondary activity, who would not recognise themselves as manufacturers' agents but who could nevertheless well be covered by the scope of the directive as drafted.

Mr. Fletcher-Cooke: The hon. Gentleman said that the intention of the Commission is not clear. Unfortunately, it is very clear according to its words. In the Legal Committee we sought on many occasions to exclude such people as estate agents, theatrical agents, and literary agents, and the Commission resisted such proposals. So its intention is clear.

Mr. Meacher: I stated that the intention of the Commission in respect of mail order agents was unclear, and certainly it needs clarification. We feel that it needs clarification in one particular way only, namely, that they should be excluded. I was not saying that it was unclear in respect of all the other categories of occupation that I have mentioned.
The hon. and learned Gentleman spoke about the apparent proposal to limit del credere agents. It has been put to us that the provisions could have the effect of making del credere agency impossible, but certainly the directive is supposed to protect del credere agents. Their agreements would have to be in writing, and the directive limits the scope of agreements which can be entered into. Indeed, it is all part of the general scheme to cover all commercial agents. But I accept

the hon. and learned Gentleman's comments.
The hon. and learned Gentleman also referred to the mandatory rules of the directive. This was also referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Farnworth (Mr. Roper), the Chairman of the Select Committee. I take this opportunity to congratulate the Select Committee for an elucidating, valuable and balanced report. My hon. Friend made the point that the mandatory rules of the directive are a distortion of normal EEC lawmaking procedures. He quoted the statement in evidence before the Select Committee that the directive was drafted more as a regulation. There is a lot of justification for that comment.
The hon. and learned Gentleman. I am glad to say accepted the desirability of making certain changes in the United Kingdom law. This was a case that my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-West (Mr. Thomas) and my hon. Friend the Member for Birmingham, Erdington (Mr. Silverman) also strongly pressed. I think there is general agreement about the desirability for changes where there is manifest weakness in the position of the agent—for example, over the question of what were called terminal payments, and over goodwill or clientele allowances, that is lump-sum payments on the termination of an agency if increased and continuing business is brought to the principal. There is, I believe, on each side of the House agreement about the desirability of extending this right which is lacking under existing practice or in existing contracts for the agent.
The hon. and learned Gentleman went on to make a comment about the question of preferred creditor status. I think he made the point that it was unreasonable for the commercial agent to derive both the benefits of self-employment for tax purposes and the benefit of being at the same time, as it were, an employee in terms of protection in the event of bankruptcy. This is one of the points which we shall be considering further. It involves a significant change in the laws relating to bankruptcy and company insolvency. It certainly adds to the already long list of preferred creditors who pro-cede ordinary trade creditors. Therefore, the question of the precise status of the commercial agent, whether self-employed


or a quasi-employee, is a relevant consideration here, together with the question of how to balance the rights of the different classes of person.
My hon. Friend the Member for Erdington listed the disadvantages of commercial agents. He rightly drew attention to the fact that it is certainly possible to document—and it has been documented—that in particular cases there is hardship. He drew attention to the example of commission being earned and then being either overdue or unpaid, to the refusal of principals to reduce the contract of agency to writing, and to inadequate written contracts. He also referred to principals changing the terms of any agency agreement in an arbitrary manner, and to the problems arising from the insolvency or winding up of principles in terms of agents being made responsible for bad debts. Those are specific complaints. Certainly in terms of this specific drafting—directed towards the target at which we believe the directive should be directed—they are proper complaints. They are injustices which should be reversed.
I take the point of my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-West that it is perhaps regrettable that we have to wait for a harmonisation measure from the Commission for this purpose. I take the point, which I think he was making, that we should not look a gift horse in the mouth in this case and that we should take advantage of this opportunity to ensure that the justice of the case of the agent is secured by this means.

Mr. Moate: Must we wait for a draft directive of this kind, or are there means whereby the Minister's Department, through recommended codes of conduct or the like, can bring about better agency arrangements which would apply effectively to the vast majority of cases?

Mr. Meacher: It is certainly possible for us to consider the introduction of a code of practice. However, we are already in the middle of 1978. It is proposed that this directive should be adopted—whether the timetable is kept to is another matter—by 1st January 1980 and would apply from 1st July 1980. Whether, given the well understood problems of the parliamentary timetable and the immediate uncertainties over the period

ahead, it would be possible to secure this within United Kingdom law is a matter which the Government have to consider. But, in the absence of progress being made via this route, certainly we would consider achieving the same objective in the way in which the hon. Gentleman suggested.

Mr. Ron Thomas: I am happy to hear those last few words from my hon. Friend. As the Conservative Party managed to nationalise Rolls-Royce in a matter of hours, I should not have thought it was too difficult to get a small Bill dealing with this matter through. I do not think it would strain the Lib-Lab pact that much.

Mr. Meacher: I take my hon. Friend's point. Certainly a real opportunity is afforded by this directive. I hope that the European Parliament will bring forward its report soon for consideration by the Council working party. Although I can give no indication of how long it will be, I hope that we do not have to wait long in order to engage in the discussions within the council working party—which we believe are right—to make progress on this measure.
My hon. Friend the Member for Erdington drew attention to the problems of the general law of agency. As was said, there is little statute law here, but common law rules exist which apply in the absence of—it may, indeed, sometimes override—the expressed stipulation of the parties. As was said on both sides of the House the present situation is not satisfactory. There is a need for a proper code of practice, or code of law, beyond that which exists to protect the position of commercial agents.
Perhaps I may refer specifically to the position of mail order agents. The hon. Member for Southend, East (Sir S. McAdden) devoted his speech to the desirability of excluding them. As my hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-West said, the arangements in Article 4(1) for agencies carried on as a secondary activity were designed—the word is "designed"—to allow mail order agents to be excluded from some provisions of the proposed directive. But this does not, however, adequately cover the situation. We are in touch with the Mail Order Traders' Association and have indicated that we share its aim in seeking to exclude


mail order traders from the scope of any directive. We have explored with the association possible methods for more clearly and completely excluding mail order selling. I can give an assurance that we share the view that they should be excluded and that we are certainly making a determined effort to ensure that that is achieved.
My hon. Friend the Member for Farnworth drew particular attention to the problem of definition and to the fact that there is a danger that it could increase uncertainty. I share his sentiment. I agree that there is a need to ensure that the directive is cast in a format which is acceptable in English law. I can certainly give an assurance that we shall aim for this in the Council of Europe working party. I take note also of the fact that my hon. Friend says that the House will wish to see the directive in its revised form. In view of the manifest inadequacies of the directive as draft at present, I certainly take full note of that request.
Most of the other member States, I think, are unlikely to oppose the idea of a directive in principle, though they may well have their preferences in terms of a less detailed and restrictive formulation, as has been expressed here tonight. It may be that some form of EEC legislation will result eventually. In these circumstances, the most sensible course for us may be to work for a better drafted directive, limited to manufacturers' selling agents and with mandatory provisions confined to a few which most justifiably protect their negotiating position vis-à-vis principals who are often but by no means always economically stronger. It seems to us that that is one way, and perhaps the best way, to approach this proposed directive.
However, I can give an assurance that all the comments that have been made tonight about this very difficult, complex and rather unclear and badly drafted directive, yet one which nevertheless has a valuable purpose, will be taken fully into account in the Government's discussions and input into the council working party in due course, which I hope will be shortly.

Question put and agreed to.

Resolved,
That this House takes note of Commission Document No. R/3/77 on Commercial Agents.

SUPPRESSION OF TERRORISM BILL [LORDS]

Order for Second Reading read.

Motion made, and Question put forthwith, pursuant to Standing Order No. 66 (Second Reading Committees), That Bill be now read a Second time.

Question agreed to.

Bill accordingly read a Second time.

Bill committed to a Standing Committee pursuant to Standing Order No. 40 (Committal of Bills).

CRIME (BRISTOL)

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Harper]

11.28 p.m.

Mr. Arthur Palmer: I wish to raise the subject of rising crime in Bristol—the figure for the police area as a whole was a 27 per cent. increase on that for last year—not because there are no other large provincial cities that have similar problems in respect of crime but because a few weeks ago the chief constable responsible for public safety in the city made an alarming statement. Mr. Kenneth Steele is the chief constable for Avon and Somerset. He is a vastly experienced police officer. He said on 30th March, according to the Bristol Evening Post:
I had hopes that the Avon and Somerset police would have made the streets of Bristol safe for anyone to walk in day or night; sadly we have failed.
I think that it would be said in the ordinary course of events that if any public official, paid to perform a task, states that he has failed, the public who pay are bound to ask whether there is something wrong with the maker of such a statement, or the organisation that he controls? However, it would be unfair to blame the police administration of Avon and Somerset for the serious state of affairs as reported by the chief constable in circumstances in which the police force itself, and the resources that it commands, are stretched beyond reasonable limits. Mr. Steele states that he needs at least 600 more men and women adequately to do the job for which he has


responsibility. That means an increase of approximately 500 on the present establishment of about 2,850, and the present establishment is 100 short of that figure.
Public alarm at the chief constable's frank remarks have been heightened in Bristol by a series of especially unpleasant and degrading rapes of women and girls in the Clifton and Redland area of the city. The perpetrator or perpetrators of the crimes has or have not yet been brought to book. In his statement the chief constable pointed out that which is undoubtedly true, that the reduction of crime, even with the largest and most effective force, needs not only police action but the full practical co-operation of the public in detecting crime and general community awareness of the situation.
In the outstanding need to make the public as a whole more crime conscious the local Press can obviously play a part. One Bristol newspaper, the Bristol Evening Post, has run a vigorous campaign towards that end. I have in my possession, as my hon. Friend the Under-Secretary of State may be interested to know, some copies of the correspondence that has passed between Mr. Gordon Farnsworth, the editor of the Bristol Evening Post, and my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for the Home Department. I shall not quote directly from that correspondence. I merely say that it is understandable that my right hon. Friend should resent any suggestion that he and the Government are complacent in these matters. It is equally understandable that a local newspaper editor should sharply reflect the worries and anxieties of the citizens. I shall leave that correspondence there, having put the two points of view as fairly as I can.
The truth is that the increase in crime in Bristol and in the country generally cannot and should not be a party issue. Those politicians who succumb to the temptation to treat it as a party issue for the sake of easy votes are accumulating much future trouble for themselves should any of them be called on to undertake the heavy responsibilities carried by my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary and other Ministers in his Department.
I am aware that my right hon. Friend has no full responsibility for provincial police forces, although I believe that the

1962 Act modified that state of affairs to some extent. However, it is clear that in a highly centralised country for government purposes such as the United Kingdom the public look to the Home Secretary and to the Government for a lead at least.
There was a day's debate on law and order in the House on 27th February. It was initiated by the Opposition; I believe that it was a Supply Day. I have read carefully the remarks of my right hon. Friend on that occasion. Much of his speech was most impressive in terms of figures. He said, for instance, that as a proportion of total expenditure the police service was doing far better than it was four years ago, even allowing for the effect of inflation. Also, he said that there were altogether 7,500 more police officers in 1977 than there were in 1974.
I accept those figures, as I must, but there is a paradox here. The chief constable of the Avon and Somerset Constabulary, in his 1977 annual report, refers to financial restraints. If there are these restraints locally, in spite of more money being spent nationally, surely there is something wrong with the system. It appears that at the top more money is being allocated and that locally less is spent.

Mr. Terry Walker: Too many paper pushers.

Mr. Palmer: I thank my hon. Friend for that intervention. As he suggests, is it true that once again too much goes on administration and not enough on policemen on the streets?
I want to raise a point about public involvement in the work of provincial police forces. It is true that the 1962 Act—I am sure my hon. Friend the Minister will confirm this—gave rather greater direct powers to the Home Secretary. I think that in the House he now answers for provincial police forces. Nevertheless, the system has still much local autonomy in its make-up and I can say that on the whole I like that; we do not necessarily want a national police force, on the lines of that of the French Republic. But need there be this extraordinary excessive secrecy about the membership of police authorities?
No doubt I can find out who is a member of the Avon and Somerset police authority if I make the effort. Probably


my hon. Friend would send the information to me if I asked her. But the national handbook on our constabularies does not give the names of members of local police authorities. We get the name of the lord lieutenant—I do not regard him as a very active practitioner in these matters—and we have that of the chief constable, and usually the name of the chairman of the police authority, but no one else. The report of the Avon and Somerset chief constable does not give other names. He pays a tribute to his superiors and thanks them for their co-operation and help, but if one looks through the whole book one does not get the names of the members of the police authority to whom he is responsible.
Surely, if the public, locally and nationally, have to find the money for the police forces, and if they want a much better service—it may not be the fault of the police that they are not getting that service—they have the right to know locally who is accountable. I should have thought that it would be a very much overdue reform if the police authority made the report to the public rather than that the chief constable did. We could let the chief constable report to the members of the authority, as their principal officer, and let those members, who are indirectly elected to serve on the authority, report in turn to the public.
Locally, there could be far more interest in what is happening with the police than is the case at the moment, when it is often left to members of Parliament—none of us shrinks from the duty, of course—to raise these matters in this House. Given a decentralised system, much of this should be surely dealt with locally.
As I said, the House had a full day's debate on 27th February. I cannot hope and would not make the attempt in 15 or so minutes to go over the whole of that ground. Therefore, I shall put forward a few short points with which I hope my hon. Friend who is to reply will be able to deal.
First, when is it expected that the Edmund Davies Committee will report on improved police pay and conditions? May I also have confirmation that its recommendations will be speedily implemented? I am sure that it is a matter of great

interest to the public and certainly to the hard pressed members of the force.
Secondly, if it is proposed that the country should allocate much more money to the maintenance of law and order—I think that is the first duty of any Government—what guarantee has the taxpayer and the ratepayer that that money will be used effectively?
Thirdly, what mechanism has been developed to ensure that the best police brains and skills for certain classes of crime are available to every local force? I think that the Bristol rapes are a case in point.
Fourthly, have the Government any set policy to guide the courts on sentencing? I favour the short sever sentence for the confirmed offender. I am not talking of the genuine first offender, the prisons being as overcrowded as they are. I think that there should be more of a national policy on this matter.
Fifthly, and perhaps most interesting of all in a way, what studies are being undertaken to understand the paradox of our times which applies to all advanced industrial societies—that the reduction of the worst poverty, rightly by public welfare and organised social concern has apparently been accompanied by a rise, not a fall, in crime? I should have thought that this subject was of major interest to the Home Office and that it would merit much more national investigation than it has so far received.

11.42 p.m.

The Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Dr. Shirley Summer-skill): My hon. Friend the Member for Bristol, North-East (Mr. Palmer) has raised an extremely serious subject which naturally concerns his constituents and those of other right hon. and hon. Members who sit for the city of Bristol.
As my hon. Friend said, the number of crimes recorded by the Avon and Somerset police, in whose area Bristol falls, rose by 28 per cent. in 1977. We do not have figures for the city of Bristol as such, but I understand that the increase in the central police division was higher still— namely, 34 per cent. This acceleration is a depressing fact after the smaller rise of 3 per cent. recorded in 1976. The first indications this year are that the increase has slowed down considerably. A particularly melancholy aspect of the crime


figures is that nearly a third of arrests in 1977 were of young persons under the age of 17.
I recognise the concern which the people of Bristol feel, especially about the increase in serious crimes, such as rape which doubled from 14 to 29 in 1977. While the number of homicides has remained constant at 13, I recognise the anxiety to which the increase in offences involving violence against the person give rise. That was an increase of 10 per cent. in 1977, which was significantly above the national trend.
As a Minister in the Home Office, I certainly do not minimise the problem of crime which we in this country are facing and which, as my hon. Friend recognised, the whole of the Western industrialised world is facing. The problem is not unique to Bristol. Throughout the country, last year showed a depressing upsurge of crime after a more or less stationary situation in 1976.
With just over 32 crimes per thousand of population, the situation facing the Avon and Somerset police is not as grim as that facing some other forces. The average for England and Wales is 43 per thousand. The Avon and Somerset area comes half way up the scale, although that is no consolation to the citizens of Bristol who are concerned about the local problem.
What can we do about this problem? The Government are anxious to secure a decent and ordered society in which civilised life can be enjoyed without fear of attack on property or person. This I know is what the great majority of the population want. The Government's role is important. But, of course, crime cannot be eradicated by legislation or indeed by public expenditure alone. Ultimately society is as civilised as the individuals who make it up. The role of the community in securing the sort of society it wants is fundamental.
The response to crime is indeed a joint one, involving the local community and their representatives as well as central Government. It is no doubt right that this House should be devoting attention to so important a local matter as crime in Bristol. But I must emphasise that my right hon. Friend the Home Secretary does not have specific responsibilities for measures to tackle crime in Bristol or

inded elsewhere. It is to the police that we look for action against crime.
The Secretary of State has the fundamental responsibility of promoting the efficiency of the police and the measures that he is taking to fulfil this responsibility as it effects Bristol will be the main aspect with which I shall deal. But I should emphasise that the responsibility for maintaining, in the words of the Police Act, an
adequate and efficient police force
rests with the local police authority constituted by the local county councils and magistrates.
My hon. Friend asked about the local police authority. In the Avon and Somerset authority it is constituted by the two county councils. Its members are two-thirds county councillors appointed by the two county councils and one-third magistrates appointed by the magistrates of the area. Perhaps my hon. Friend can suggest to the chief constable that in his next report he includes the members as well as the chairman of the police authority.

Mr. Palmer: Is it the normal practice not to give the names of the members of the police authority?

Dr. Summerskill: I cannot give my hon. Friend a categorical answer to that. I doubt whether it is laid down that the names of members should not be given in chief constables' reports. I should imagine that it is left to each chief constable to decide what he wants to put in his report.
The operational responsibility for the force rests solely with the chief constable. This tripartite division of responsibility for policing is of the essence of our system. It has the inestimable advantage that politics play no part in police operations. I must keep carefully in mind this division of responsibilities between my right hon. Friend, the Avon and Somerset police authority and its constabulary.
Through Her Majesty's inspector and his officials the Home Secretary takes a great interest in the problems facing the Avon and Somerset police and keeps himself fully informed of the local situation. The Minister of State responsible for policing Home Office matters, Lord Harris, attended a police function in Bristol last week.
A healthy police service is society's first defence against crime. I am glad to reaffirm the Government's commitment to supporting the police. For the first time for many years the strength of the police forces of England and Wales, regrettably, declined in 1977. We have discussed this situation on many occasions in the House. Suffice it to say that, while recruitment last year at over 8,000 remained good after two exceptional years, the great increase in wastage hit the police badly.
The experience of the Avon and Somerset police is not untypical. The strength of the force fell last year by 53 despite an intake of 174. In other words, the force suffered a wastage of 227. Wastage naturally tends to be high after good years of recruitment as probationers find that the police service is not for them. It may help to put the wastage in perspective to note that of the 227 officers who left the Avon and Somerset police about half—112—resigned prematurely. One-third retired on pension. It is the premature wastage which is of major concern. The majority—62—had less than two years' service. The number of experienced officers, with five years' or more service, who left the Avon and Somerset police last year was 36—in other words, about a sixth of the wastage. It is the experienced officers who, above all, we must seek to retain in the police service.
I am glad to say that, like other forces outside London, Avon and Somerset seems at least to be holding its own this year. In the first quarter the force recorded a net increase of six officers. At the end of March the force strength stood at 2,755. Despite the losses last year, the force has grown by 206 in the four years since it was constituted following local government reorganisation on 1st April 1974.
The force has been conducting its own programme of recruitment publicity. It has, for example, advertised in the local Press. Its local activities are supported centrally by the police national recruitment campaign which we run from the Home Office for the benefit of all forces in England and Wales. In the last financial year over £500,000 was spent on police recruitment publicity through the national campaign and, subject to the approval of Parliament, the figure will be

nearer £800,000 this year. One aspect of the national campaign is Press advertising designed to attract recruits particularly to the forces covering the larger cities like Bristol. The Avon and Somerset police are specifically mentioned in some of the advertisements. My hon. Friend mentioned police pay, which is an extremely important factor.
Agreement was reached with the police service last year on an immediate increase in pay of 10 per cent. together with an independent inquiry into pay and other matters. The committee is now engaged urgently in this task. The Government have made it clear that we will accept the recommendations of the inquiry on pay, reserving only the right to consider the phasing of their implementation. The committee under Lord Edmund Davies is giving priority to this subject. It has now finished taking evidence and will, I am sure, report as soon as it can. It is essential that the committee should take adequate time to give the difficult issues involved full consideration. The Government are confident that the committee's report will pave the way for the health of the police service for years to come.
On the question of establishment, I have said that the strength of the Avon and Somerset police now stands at 2,755. This represents a deficiency of 96 below the authorised establishment of 2,851. Though this deficiency of 3·39 per cent. compares favourably with the national level of nearly 9 per cent., it is, of course, a matter of concern to the people of Bristol. As I have said, the force is holding its own this year. I look forward to good progress following the Edmund Davies report.
The appropriate level of establishment of the Avon and Somerset police is a matter in the first place for the police authority. But this is a responsibility which it shares with the Secretary of State. Under Section 4 of the Police Act the police authority has to obtain the approval of the Secretary of State for the level of establishment which it sets. I know that there is strong local feeling that the present level seriously underestimates the number of police officers needed to give adequate police cover. It is part of our standing arrangements between the Home Office and police authorities that establishment levels should be reviewed at regular intervals.


The chief constable has, I know, conducted a review of his establishment and is discussing his proposals with Her Majesty's inspector. My right hon. Friend the Home Secretary has, however, not yet received any proposals for an increase in establishment from the police authority.
I am not, therefore, in a position to comment on the question of an increase in force establishment at this stage. Suffice to say that my right hon. Friend will consider any proposals the police authority submits in due course with great care and sympathy in the light of the problems and the needs of the area and its police force. I should like to emphasise one point, however. The present level of establishment is not at this stage a restraint on increasing the strength of the Avon and Somerset police. As I have said, the force has—regrettably—scope for growth within its present establishment in view of the deficiency of nearly 100 on the present level.
I turn to the question of public expenditure. Everyone agrees that increased public expenditure is desirable. Accordingly, the Government have exempted the recruitment of police officers up to authorised establishment from the public expenditure restrictions which the economic situation has made necessary in recent years. There is nothing to stop Avon and Somerset police from recruiting up to establishment.
The police service could not, however, be entirely exempt from these restrictions. It was generally agreed that the lesser evil was to concentrate the necessary cuts on the various categories of civilian support staff and on other expenditure like goods and services. The Government recognised that this would inevitably have an effect on the ability of forces to respond to the challenges facing them. We regretted that it was necessary to cut back in the recruitment of police cadets and police civilians. I know that Avon and Somerset has been particularly affected by these public ex-

penditure cuts. Representations were made to the Home Secretary last year. My right hon. Friend was therefore very glad to be able to relax the restrictions. The extra expenditure which he announced last November is of tangible benefit to the Avon and Somerset police. It will enable them to recruit some 25 cadets and about 20 new civilian staff. As my right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced in his Budget speech, the Government have now been able to relax the restrictions further. We shall be getting in touch with the Avon and Somerset police authority along with the other police authorities shortly about the details.
On the specific question that my hon. Friend asked about co-operation and co-ordination between forces, this is possible and it is done. Where there are particular problems, such as the incidents of rape in Bristol, it is open to neighbouring forces to co-operate with each other.
There is a great deal of research about the causes of crime, and its link with the affluent society, going on in many universities, and perhaps even in Bristol University itself. There is no lack of effort being made to try to find the causes of rising crime, and what it is linked to. There is no easy answer to the problem.
I have dwelt on the general considerations affecting the strength of the Avon and Somerset police. Without wishing to encroach on the responsibilities of the chief constable, I should, however, end with some reference to the action which the force has been taking to deal with the situation which my hon. Friend has described. To counter the problem of street crime at night the chief constable has increased the police cover in Bristol—

The Question having been proposed after Ten o'clock and the debate having continued for half an hour, Mr. DEPUTY SPEAKER adjourned the House without Question put, pursuant to the Standing Order.

Adjourned at two minutes to Twelve o'clock.